Establishment Has A Property Interest In Liquor License Actually Issued
PRO'S SPORTS BAR & GRILL v. CITY OF COUNTRY CLUB HILLS (December 16, 2009)
Pro's Sports Bar & Grill is located in Country Club Hills, Illinois. Pro's submitted an application for a liquor license. Pursuant to local procedure, the City Council considered an ordinance on November 26, 2007 for the granting of that license. There is significant dispute about what happened at the council meeting. At a minimum, there is confusion about the formalities undertaken. There certainly was discussion about granting a license with limited hours. In any event, at the end of the meeting, an ordinance granting the license was approved. A Class A license with regular hours was issued. Shortly thereafter, however, the license was reissued as a Class A-1 license (a category of license not even defined in the municipal code). The local police began enforcing the license as if it had the limited hours which were discussed in the earlier council meeting. In 2008, when Pro's applied for a reissuance of the license, it was issued with limited hours, even though the normal practice is to be issued a license on its original terms and conditions. Pro's filed suit pursuant to § 1983, alleging a violation of its procedural due process rights. The court granted a preliminary injunction prohibiting the enforcement of the limited hours. The City of Country Club Hills appeals.
In their opinion, Judges Flaum, Manion and Wood affirmed. The Court started with its two-part test for approaching a procedural due process claim. It first identifies whether there is a protected liberty or property interest and then asks whether a party was deprived of its interest without due process. The principal issue in dispute was whether the original license contained the limited hours. If it did, the renewal did not result in any deprivation. If it did not, the renewal restrictions would have resulted in a deprivation. The bare language of the original ordinance granted an unrestricted license. The Court found the language of the ordinance unambiguous and rejected the defendants' argument that it should be interpreted otherwise because of either the intent of the City Council or because it was a scrivener's error. Having found a deprivation of the property interest, there was little dispute about the City's failure to provide adequate process -- since it provided none. Finally, the Court found no error in the lower court's balancing of the preliminary injunction factors.
