Yes, hence my question in post 11.
All it has to mean is that police are there to prevent trespassing. Trespassing means that unwanted people are trying to come onto private property. Those unwanted are non-locals. Just because someone has a very desirable commodity doesn’t mean they aren’t the same as any other private group or business. Wholesale clubs sell all kinds of great stuff including gasoline at reduced prices and you have to belong to select groups to get a membership.
It’s not that simple. If on-duty police are actively enforcing the rule, even if the idea originated with the gas station owners, sufficient state action is arguably present, enough to trigger the Constitutional clause alluded to by Paul.
(It should be noted that the rule isn’t absolute, though. Some state discrimination against out-of-staters has been upheld (e.g. higher fees for fishing licenses, or state park entry), usually on the theory that the in-staters are subsidising the service being paid for with taxes.)
Irrelevant. Obviously no state action here.
Johnny L.A. pointed it out, but to include a cite:
[Dictionary.com: adj. pl. those
- Being the one singled out, implied, or understood: that place; those mountains.
Here’s hoping your prof at Subconscious Mind Reading University doesn’t have tenure.
No you wouldn’t. If the cops tried that here — Canada — they’d be in jail, the story would be on every front page and the lead item on every news broadcast for a year, and heads would roll all the way up into Parliament.
Not in Nixon, obviously.
A lesson to everyone that refuses to learn economics: When the money price is kept from rising to equilibrium, another method must be discovered to ration the available supply. In this case there is a shortage imposed on out-of-towners. Pity also the gas station owner who would probably prefer not to sell to anyone at the below market price.
Here is a case considering a similar kind of policy. In Hawaii, it is common for hotels to offer a Kamaaina (“local”) rate to residents. The plaintiff class in this case argued that this form of discrimination was unconstitutional. The California Court of Appeals held that it was not.
http://online.ceb.com/calcases/CA3/73CA3d152.htm
Here are some examples of a Kamaaina rates.
If somebody tried to force their way into one of those wholesale clubs and attempted to take the merchandise (even if they were willing to leave an amount of money equivalent to what a club member would pay), the police would presumably step in to defend the wholesaler’s rights.
Maybe not, but the people being refused service are evacuees. If they are treated like pariah during a state mandated evacuation, then the state has an interest in preventing a ‘locals only’ policy. Otherwise, it will be harder to get people to evacuate when the next hurricane hits. Of course, it’s up to the state to make ‘locals only’ illegal in such situations.
Correct. If state officials enforce a private policy which is discriminatory, that is state action. Griffin V. Maryland (police arrested black patrons of an amusement park for trespass based on racist admission policy; held, sufficient state action).
In the case of private warehouse clubs, there is no invidious discrimination. Therefore, the state can enforce criminal trespass laws without violating the constitution.
A good way to establish this might be to contact the Texas Attorney General’s office and ask. See if you can get them to give you a state law reference.
I suspect it may turn out to be legal, per prior posts in this thread, but it would be interesting to know for sure.
Some businesses, such as common carriers, are required to serve anyone (barring drunks waving weapons or other identifiable exceptions).
Their website says that they are hosting evacuee’s in the high school gym, so I don’t know if their ‘locals only’ policy applies to everything. You might try calling Don Chessher, Mayor, at City Hall: 830-582-1924.
To expand on this a bit, no wholesale club rules that I’ve ever heard of discriminates on a basis that would be unconstitutional, even if state action were involved.* AFAIK, Costco will give anyone a membership if he forks over the annual fee. Other, older-style warehouse outfits may only offer memberships to people in certain categories (for example, business owners, government workers, employees of certain businesses, or people in specified organizations), but discrimination like this isn’t unconstitutional. If a warehouse club discriminated on the basis of state residence, that arguably does raise a constitutional issue under Article IV (the privileges and immunities clause in section 2), if there is state action.
I’m familiar with (and annoyed by) the widespread practice of Hawaiian businesses cited by Gfactor, and read the case he linked to with interest. However, in that case:
(emphasis added. internal cites and footnotes omitted.)
And it’s difficult to imagine a situation where a hotel, for example, would need to call in the state to enforce its Kamaaina discount policy. Though it’d be interesting to see a privileges and immunities argument made an out-of-state defendant in a Hawaiian court collection lawsuit brought by a hotel alleging nonpayment (where the defendant offered to pay the in-state rate). The use of the state courts would arguably be the necessary state action. It’d be a long shot, though, especially given the Hawaiian home field advantage and the ingrained acceptance in that state of Kamaaina discounting.
*I concede that if an actual unit of government directly discriminated in favor of say, members of the ACME credit union, like some warehouse clubs have been known to do, it arguably would present an equal protection problem. But credit union membership, like the other criteria sometimes used by warehouse clubs, does not involve a suspect class (race, religion, etc.) and would not get strict court scrutiny. And no indirect state action related to private favoritism of this nature is going to get any real court scrutiny at all.
I’ll call tomorrow and see what they have to say.
whether or not its legal or not does not change the fact that its wrong. i would wait at the pump and talk to everyone that came. i would buy gas from someone to get it in the first place. family and life come first. later on i would deck the guy. my name is gabriel, but im no angel.
Indeed it has been held to be so. Shelley v. Kramer (“The short of the matter is that from the time of the adoption of the Fourteenth Amendment until the present, it has been the consistent ruling of this Court that the action of the States to which the Amendment has reference includes action of state courts and state judicial officials.”)