MARVIN MANDEL, Governor

4023

Be: House Bill 978

Dear Governor Mandel:

The above bill attempts to amend Section 56(18) of
Article 2B, dealing with the procedure for applying for
an alcoholic beverage license, by adding a special
provision applicable to Baltimore County only. The
bill's title contains no indication that any county other
than Baltimore County is to be affected.

Prior to the 1975 amendment, subsection (18)
required "A certificate signed by at least ten citizens
who shall be owners of real estate and registered voters
of the precinct in which the business is to be
conducted...." (Emphasis added). In adding the provision
applicable to Baltimore County, the phrase emphasized
above was deleted. The effect of that deletion on
counties other than Baltimore (excluding also St.
Mary's, Prince George's and Montgomery which are exempted
elsewhere in this Section) is dramatic, and, we believe,
illegal.

Article III, Section 29 of the Constitution of
Maryland requires that:

"... every Law enacted by the General Assembly shall
embrace but one subject and that shall be described
in its title."
The Court of Appeals has stated that this provision
requires that a bill's title "must not be misleading by
apparently limiting the enactment to a much narrower
scope than the body of the Act is made to compass...."
Painter v. Mattfeldt, 119 Md. 466, 474 (1913). In
weighing the adequacy of a title, the Court has
frequently inquired whether it was sufficient to put
legislators and the public "on notice" of its intended
provision. Dinneen v. Rider, 152 Md. 343, 358 (1927);
Quenstedt v. Wilson, 173 Md. 11, 22 (1937).

Whereas prior to House Bill 978, the ten signatures
required by Section 56(18) had to be from citizens who
were registered voters of the precinct in which the
business was to be conducted, as amended, the requirement
would be simply that they be "citizens who shall be
owners of real estate and registered voters" (query —
voters of the county, of the State, of the country?).
This is a substantive change affecting virtually every
county of the State. However, the bill's title indicates
that the Act concerns Baltimore County only.

Clearly, the title is misleading in its failure to
put readers "on notice" as to the provisions of the Act,
As those provisions go well beyond the narrow scope of