LEGAL ANALYSIS 105 



clearest are those at the extremes of the spectrum between the highly 

 regulated occupations at the one end and those relatively free from 

 regulation at the other. Since the days of Prohibition at least, the 

 liquor industry has been subject to very severe regulation. The 

 amount has been so much that the language has become common, 

 both in legislation and in court opinions, to speak as if to deal in 

 liquor was a "privilege" and that the legislature could do anything 

 it pleased in the regulation thereof. The reasoning as formulated 

 usually is that, since the state could prohibit traffic in liquor entirely, 

 as indeed it can under the Twenty-first Amendment to the federal 

 Constitution, it can, therefore, surround any liquor business with 

 any restriction without regard to any limitations of the constitution. 



A hypothetical case might illustrate the proposition most clearly: 

 This doctrine would, for example, justify a state to refuse a tavern 

 license to a person because, and solely because, of his racial back- 

 ground. The case which tested the proposition in Washington, how- 

 ever, was not that extreme. First, attention should be called to its 

 fore-runner. Randies v. State Liquor Control Board ^^^ a 1949 de- 

 cision. In that case Initiative No. 171, pertaining to Class "H" 

 licenses, was challenged on several constitutional grounds. The court 

 held against the challengers, sustaining the act. In the course of 

 the opinion, the court repeated the right-privilege formula: 



"There is no natural or constitutional right to sell or engage in the 

 business of selling or dispensing intoxicating liquor ... In considering 

 claims of discrimination and the denial of alleged rights, the distinction 

 between a lawful business which a citizen has the right to engage in and 

 one in which he may engage only as a matter of grace of the state must be 

 constantly in mind."^^^ 



Yet the court proceeded to review all the claimed violations of 

 constitutional right and passed on every one of them on its merits! 

 Realizing the inconsistency, apparently, the court did acknowledge 

 the difficulty which this right-privilege dichotomy had led to, as 

 follows : 



"The appellants are not before the court claiming they have been 

 denied a license because of partisan considerations, race prejudice, special 

 individual favoritism, or personal animosities, and we are not now called 

 upon to decide whether the lack of a standard to guide the action of the 

 board and thus prevent such discriminations might constitute a deficiency 

 in InllaXivQ 171."'''^i 



139. 33 Wn. 2d 688. 206 P. 2d 1209 (1949). 



140. Id. at 694; 206 P. 2d at 1213. 



141. Id. at 697; 206 P. 2d at 1214. 



