The appellant municipality challenged a Court of Appeal decision annulling a by-law regulating amusement machines and amusement halls.
The Supreme Court held that, apart from severable age-based restrictions, the by-law was a valid regulatory scheme concerning local commerce, zoning, youth protection and local policing, and was neither disguised prohibitory legislation nor impermissibly vague.
The Court further held that the municipality lacked authority to enact discriminatory distinctions based on age absent express or necessarily implied statutory authorization, rendering the provisions excluding persons under eighteen from amusement halls and billiard halls ultra vires.
The constitutional division-of-powers challenge failed because the by-law did not trench on the federal criminal law power.
