AN ACT to regulate the sale of Spirituous Liquors.

Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives, in General Court assembled, and by the authority of the same, as follows:

Sec. 1. No licensed innholder, retailer, common victualler, or other person, except as hereinafter provided, shall sell any brandy, rum, or other spiritous liquors, or any mixed liquor, part of which is spirituous, in a less quanity than fifteen gallons, and that delivered and carried away all at one time, on pain of forteiting not more than twenty dollars nor less than ten dollars, for each offence, to be recovered in the manner and for the use provided in the twenty-sixth section of the forty-seventh chapter of the revised statutes.

Sec. 2. The county commissioners in the several counties, may license for their respective towns, as many apothecaries, or practising physicians as they deem necessary to be retailers of spirituous liquors, to be used in the arts, or for medicinal purposes only; and the mayor and aldermen of the several cities, may, in like manner, and for like purposes, license apothecaries, as retailers for their respective cities, and the court of common pleas in the county of Suffolk, in the like manner and for like purposes, may license apothecaries or practicing physicians, as retailers in the town of Chelsea, which licenses shall be granted in the same manner and under the same restrictions now procided by law for licensing retailers; provided, that the number of persons so licensed shall not exceed one for every two thousand inhabitants; and in towns containing less than two thousand inhabitants, one person shall be licensed; and provided further, that in such cities and towns where there is no apothecary or practising physician, such other person or persons may be appointed as aforesaid as may be deemed proper by said county commissioners; and no person so licensed, shall sell any spirituous liquors to be drunk in or about his premises, on pain of the forfeiture provided in the first section of this act.

Sec. 3. All licenses hereafter granted to innholders, retailers, and common victuallers, shall be so framed as not to authorize the licensed persons to sell brandy, rum, or any other spirituous liquors; and no excise or fee shall be required for such a license.

Sec. 4. The provisions of all laws now in force inconsistent with this act are hereby repealed.

Sec. 5. This act shall take effect on the first day of July next, but shall have no operation upon any licenses granted previously to that time.

[Approved by the Governor, April 19, 1838.]