Abramson v. State

Sloan, J., delivered the opinion of the Court. This appeal is from a judgment against the defendant for the violation of the provision of article 2B of the Code, Acts of 1933 (Ex. Sess.) ch. 2, forbidding a class D licensee to have untaxed liquor in his possession. The indictment charges in the first count that Joseph Abramson, the defendant, “did unlawfully have in possession and permit to be kept upon the aforesaid premises, (No. 1634 Chesapeake Avenue, Baltimore,) certain distilled spirits and liquors and other alcoholic beverages containing more than fourteen percentage of alcohol upon which * * * the tax as prescribed by law had not theretofore been paid,” and in the second count that he “did sell and offer for sale” such distilled spirits, liquors, and alcoholic beverages “to a certaifi person to the jurors unknown.” The defendant specially pleaded to the in ⁵³³ dictment, saying “That the liquor mentioned in the indictment was delivered into his possession several years before the enactment of Article 2B * * * and that the same is not therefore subject to the tax imposed by that Act,” to which the State demurred, and so is presented the question of the construction of as much of section 40 as provides that “Any retail dealer, and every retail dealer and every employee of any such retail dealer who shall have in his possession, sell or offer for sale, or permit to be kept upon the premises, any alcoholic beverages subject to the tax imposed by this Act, upon which the tax has not been paid * * * shall, upon conviction, be subject to a fine” or imprisonment or both.

The question then, as raised by the special plea, the demurrer to which was sustained, is whether the statute applies to a licensee who has liquor on his premises the tax upon which, imposed by section 37, has not been paid. Spielman v. State, 27 Md. 520 ; Cearfoss v. State, 42 Md. 403; Salfner v. State, 84 Md. 299 , 35 A. 885 , and Burroughs Adding Machine Co. v. State, 146 Md. 192 , 126 A. 127 . The offense charged is statutory, and the general rule that the indictment is sufficient if it follows the language of the statute has been here followed. Minchner v. State, 66 Md. 227, 234 , 7 A. 451 ; Bosco v. State, 157 Md. 407, 409 , 146 A. 238 ; Wentz v. State, 159 Md. 161 , 150 A. 278 .

The defendant argues that to forbid a licensee to have in his possession on licensed premises liquor or alcoholic beverages, acquired before passage of the statute, is to give the liquor law of 1933 a retroactive effect which the Legislature did not intend. We see no