The Anti-license law.
--Among the last acts passed by the Virginia Legislature before its sine die,adjournment on Thursday night, was one refusing to grant any more licenses to carry on the ordinary business after the expiration of the period for which those that have already been issued will entitle the holders thereof to continue in business. After the first of May, therefore, intoxicating liquors will only be used by those who are able to buy by the large quantity, or who have been lucky enough to find their way into the numerous dark cellars and secluded garrets where it will be dispensed by persons who are willing to evade the law, and thereby amass money by its sale without incurring the expense which has heretofore been required to obtain a license. The following is the law as it passed both branches of the Legislature.- 1. Be it enacts I by the General Assembly, That it shall not he lawful for any Court of this Commonwealth to grant a license to keep an ordinary to any person within a city or town, or which five miles of the limits thereof, or at any depot, station, or other point on any railroad.
- 2. Any person who shall, without having first obtained an ordinary license, sell by retail, wine, ardent spirits, or a mixture thereof, ale, porter, or beer or such like drinks, to be drunk in or at the place of sale, he shall, in addition to the penalty now prescribed by law, forfeit the tenement where the sale is made if he is the owner thereof or such interest as he may have therein if he is the lessee, and shall moreover forfeit the stock of liquors on hand and all the personal property used in such business, and the Court before which a conviction shall he had shall take such steps as it may deem proper for the confiscation and sale of the property forfeited by this act.
- 3. This act shall be in force from its passage.
