| Rendering establishments: | Grand Rapids vs. Weiden, 97 Mich. 82 |
| Meigs vs. Lister, 23 N. J. Eq. 199 | |
| Slaughterhouses: | Harmison et al. vs. City of Lewiston, 46 Ill. App. 164 |
| Ex parte Heilbron, 65 Cal. 609 | |
| Beiling vs. City of Evanston, 144 Ind. 644 | |
| Smelting works: | Appeal of Pa. Lead Co., 96 Pa. 116 |
| Stables: | Shiras vs. Olinger, 50 Ia. 571 |
| Fertilizer factories: | Evans vs. Fertilizer Co., 160 Pa. 209 |
| The emission of dense smoke: | People vs. Lewis, 86 Mich. 273 |
| Atlantic City vs. France, 74 N. J. Law 389 | |
| Harmon vs. Chicago, 110 Ill. 400 |
Other courts have come to different conclusions with the same or very similar ordinances applied under different conditions, the courts holding that a declaration by municipal authorities that an occupation is a nuisance does not make it so in fact:
| Slaughter houses: | Wreford vs. People, 14 Mich. 41 |
| Stables: | Phillips vs. City of Denver, 19 Col. 179 |
| The emission of dense smoke: | St. Louis vs. Heitzeberg Packing Co., 141 Mo. 375 |
| St. Paul vs. Gilfillan, 36 Minn. 298 |
3. DIFFERENTIATED DISTRICT REGULATIONS
Legislation in Massachusetts gives a further right by authorizing boards of health of cities or towns “to assign certain places for the exercise of any trade or employment which is a nuisance or hurtful to the inhabitants, injurious to their estates, dangerous to the public health, or is attended by noisome and injurious odors.” They may also prohibit “the exercise thereof with the limits of the city or town or in places not so assigned.”[135]
It does not seem to have been the practice of Massachusetts boards of health to exercise the right of assigning offensive occupations to certain parts of the city, and therefore the question of the right of the community to impair the value of private property by assigning objectionable occupations to certain districts has not been tested. The practical answer to this objection to segregating offensive occupations within defined limits is that they would be located only in those portions of the city where the value of the land or the character of occupation showed that legal actions by property owners included in the district would be unlikely, and, if brought, would be either dismissed or a nominal amount of damages be awarded.
Los Angeles has largely applied the principle of separating industrial districts from residential districts. By an ordinance adopted in 1909 seven industrial districts were established in the city, and by an ordinance of the next year all the rest of the city, with unimportant exceptions, was declared to be a residential district. The ordinance further provides that industrial occupations may be permitted in certain excepted portions of the residence district, and the right is reserved to except other portions as conditions warrant. It is made unlawful for any person, firm, or corporation “to erect, establish, maintain or carry on within the residential district described in section 1 of the ordinance any stone crusher, rolling mill, carpet beating establishment, fireworks factory, soap factory, or any other works or factory where power other than animal power is used to operate, or in the operation of the same, or any hay barn, wood yard, lumber yard, public laundry or wash house.”
The ordinance was tested in the case of Ex Parte Quong Wo.[136] The petitioner, Quong Wo, who had been convicted and imprisoned for carrying on a public laundry and wash house in a residence district, sought to be discharged from custody. The court dismissed the application for a writ of habeas corpus, finding that it was within the lawful exercise of the police power to confine the business of operating a public laundry or wash house within defined limits. The following language of the decision is particularly in point:
“There can be no question that the power to regulate the carrying on of certain lawful occupations in a city includes the power to confine the carrying on of the same to certain limits whenever such restriction may reasonably be found necessary to subserve the ends for which the police power exists.... It is primarily for the legislative body clothed with this power to determine when such regulations are essential, and its determination in this regard, in view of its better knowledge of all the circumstances and the presumption that it is acting with a due regard for the rights of all parties will not be disturbed in the courts, unless it can plainly be seen that the regulation has no relation to the ends above stated, but is a clear invasion of personal or property rights under the guise of police regulation.”
This decision was reviewed and upheld in the case of Montgomery’s application for a writ of habeas corpus, the only difference in the cases being that the petitioner in the latter case was imprisoned for carrying on or maintaining a lumber yard within the residence district.[137] The contention was made by Montgomery that a lumber yard was not one of those specific occupations which could be regulated under the exercise of the police power since it was not enumerated in the charter of the city. The court found specifically that if the ordinance could be upheld under the general police power of the city, it would not fall merely because the city had specific authority under its charter to suppress certain other kinds of business.