1937_public laws_50_11
CHAPTER 49 AN ACT TO PROVIDE FOR THE MANUFACTURE, SALE, AND CONTROL OF ALCOHOLIC BEVERAGES IN NORTH CAROLINA. The General Assembly of North Carolina do enact:
That the said county boards shall each have the following powers and duties: (a) Control and jurisdiction over the importation, sale and distribution of alcoholic beverages within its respective county. (b) Power to buy and to have in its possession and to sell alcoholic beverages within its county. (ec) Power and authority to adopt rules and regulations governing the operation of stores within its county and relating to the carrying out of the provisions and purposes of this Act. (d) To prescribe and regulate and direct the duties and seryices of all employees of said county board. (e) To fix the hours for the opening and closing of stores operated by it. No store, however, shall be permitted to remain open between the hours of nine oclock P. M. and nine oclock A. M. (f) To require any county stores to close on such days as it may designate, but all stores in any county operating under the provisions of this Act shall remain closed on Sundays, election days, New Years Day, Fourth of July, Labor Day, Armistice Day, Thanksgiving and Christmas Day. (g) To import, transport, receive, purchase, sell and deliver and have in its possession for sale for present and future delivery alcoholic beverages. (h) To purchase or lease property, furnish and equip buildings, rooms and accommodations as and when required for the storage and sale of alcoholic beverages and for distribution to all county stores within said county. (i) To borrow money, guarantee the payment thereof and the interest thereon, in such manner as may be required or permitted by law, and to issue, sign, endorse and accept checks, promissory notes, bills of exchange and other negotiable instruments and to do all such other and necessary things as may be required or may be convenient in the conduct of liquor stores in its county. (j) To investigate and aid in the prosecution of violations of this Act and other liquor laws, by whatever name called, and to seize alcoholic beverages in said county sold, kept. imported or transported illegally and to apply for confiscation thereof and to cooperate in the prosecution of offenders in any court in said county. (k) To regulate and to prescribe rules and regulations that may be necessary or feasible for the obtaining of purity in all alcoholic beverages, including TRUE statements of contents and the proper labeling thereof. -1 To fix and maintain the prices of all alcoholic beverages sold by liquor stores in said county and to prescribe to whom the same may be sold, and to purchase and have and fix the price of alcohol for scientific, pharmaceutical and industrial purposes, and to issue permits for the use of alcohol for scientific research, for industrial use, for medical purposes, for hospitals and sanatoria and the use of alcohol for any of said purposes shall be tax free. (m) To exercise the power to buy, purchase and sell and to fix the prices at which all alcoholic beverages may be purchased from it, but nothing herein contained shall give said board the power to purchase or sell or deal in alcoholic beverages which contain less than five per centum of alcohol by weight. (n) To locate stores in its county and to provide for the management thereof and to appoint and employ at least one person for each store conducted by it, who shall be Known as manager thereof. The duty of such manager shall be to conduct the said store under directions of the county board and to carry out the law applying thereto, and such manager shall give bond for the faithful performance of his duties in such sum as may be fixed by said county board, with sufficient corporate surety and said surety, or sureties thereon, shall be approved by the said county board as a part of the qualifications of such manager for his appointment, and the said county board shall have the right to sue on said bond and to recover for all failures on the part of said manager faithfully to perform his duties as such manager, to the extent of any loss oeceasioned by such manager on his part, but as against the surety. or sureties, thereon, such aggregate recovery, or recoveries, shall not exceed the penalty of said bond. 0 To expend for law enforcement a sum not less than five per cent nor more than ten per cent of the total profits to be determined by quarterly audits and in the expenditure of said funds shall employ one or more persons to be appointed by and directly responsible to the respective county boards. (p) To discontinue the operation of any store in its county whenever it shall appear to said board that the operation thereof is not sufficiently profitable to justify a continuance of its operation, or when, in its opinion, the operation of any store is inimical or hurtful to the morals or welfare of the community in which it is operated, or when said county board may be directed to close any store by the State Board; Provided, that the liquor stores at Southern Pines and at Pinehurst in Moore County, shall be continued under the provisions of this Act, but no other stores shall be established or operated in Moore County unless and until an election may be had in said county under the provisions of this Act and a majority of the votes cast at such election shall have been For County Liquor Control Stores. An election in Moore County upon the question of the establishment or operation of liquor stores under the provisions of this Act may be called only after three years from the ratification of this Act. That all the powers and duties herein conferred upon county boards, or required of them, shall be subject to the powers herein conferred upon the State Board and whenever or wherever herein the State Board has been given power to approve or disapprove anything in respect to county stores or county boards, then no power on the part of the county boards and no act of any county board shall be exercisable or valid until and unless the same has been approved by the State Board.