Catalog Numbers For The Los Angeles Liquor License Tax Stamps Of 1933?

Found a court case in California regarding the Los Angeles beer stamps. If I am reading the opinion correctly, the use of the Los Angeles stamps may have begun October 1. As of April 6, the state enacted a tax on beer. Thus these stamps were in use during the period of the state taxes (California did not use beer stamps!). The length of time that Los Angeles used stamps is still unclear, but rather than the September 1 start date that I suggested earlier, it appears that October 1 is the start date.

Wow! Thank you all sooooo much for your insightful and informative responses to my initial inquiry!!! I did not realize there was so much interest in these particular stamps.

Regarding EKU: The City Council of Los Angeles passed ordinance 72,975 (which amended section 35 of ordinance 56,600) on August 22, 1933 and subsequently approved by Mayor Frank L. Shaw on August 31, 1933, thereby establishing the earliest possible (legal) date of use as August 31, 1933--assuming the stamps were ready to be distributed on that date. The ordinance was published in the newspaper September 1, 1933. There is a court reference that suggests the ordinance became mandatory on October 1, 1933.

An interesting part of the ordinance was the paragraph requiring the person emptying the container to destroy the stamp or face a misdemeanor charge!

"The Stamps must remain on the container until the
contents are emptied therefrom. When the container is emptied,
all stamps must be completely destroyed by effacement or obliteration.
Responsibility for destroying stamps on liquor
containers rests upon the party emptying the container. Any
person emptying a container of alcoholic liquor and failing
to immediately destroy all stamps thereon will be deemed
guilty of a misdemeanor and subject to prosecution, as provided
for by this ordinance."


The above requirement may explain the scarcity of these stamps.

The ordinance that implemented the use of these stamps was immediately (September 7) met with a lawsuit challenging the legality of the stamps for collecting license fees.

In my original post, I mentioned the stamps were "in use" for less than four months in 1933. I should have said they were "authorized" for use for less than four months. Sorry about that.

On December 5, 1933 Ordinance 72,975 was essentially nullified when the City Council passed Ordinance 73,310 which changed the license fee structure to be based on sales volumes of on-sale and off-sale beer & wine and liquor dealers. The ordinance was approved by Mayor Shaw on December 6, 1933, and published in the Los Angeles Daily Journal on December 7, 1933.

So, coincident with the repeal of the 18th Amendment on December 5, prohibition ended as did the ordinance requiring the Liquor License Tax Stamps by the City of Los Angeles. A later court decisions ordered the City of Los Angeles had to refund $3,464.65 collected through sales of these stamps on or after December 5, 1933.

For determining the LKU, the last "legal" date of issue of the tax stamps is moot. Based on the extant examples, we know many stamps were cancelled after December 5th. Perhaps the dealers already had thousands of tax stamps in stock that had to be depleted? Perhaps too, the City of Los Angeles continued to sell their stock of these stamps after December 5th? (The latter seems likely based on the court ruling mentioned in the previous paragraph.)

StateRevs: Thanks so much for the link to the city listing!
Here is a summary of the table with four new dates for you (the images below were screen grabs from ebay listings):

Denom.
3-Cent: EKU: 2 Oct 1933 LKU: 28 Dec 1933*
4-Cent: EKU: 18 Dec 1933* LKU: 4 Jan 1934
6-Cent: EKU: 18 Dec 1933 LKU: 18 Dec 1933
8-Cent: EKU: 12 Nov 1933* LKU: 27 Dec 1933
11-Cent: EKU: LKU:
16-Cent: EKU: 13 Oct 1933 LKU: 28 Nov 1933*
31-Cent:EKU: LKU:
*New Date

Thank you, USPostalNotes for the additional information on the refunds after December 5, a very interesting part of the story. Thank you, again.

All,

Three updates to add to the date list!

I found a later date for the 6 cent, an earlier date for the 16 cent EKU, and was finally able to get my hands on a used 31 cent.













The new list

3-Cent: EKU: 2 Oct 1933 LKU: 28 Dec 1933
4-Cent: EKU: 18 Dec 1933 LKU: 4 Jan 1934
6-Cent: EKU: 18 Dec 1933 LKU: 22 Dec 1933*
8-Cent: EKU: 12 Nov 1933 LKU: 27 Dec 1933
11-Cent: EKU: LKU:
16-Cent: EKU: 4 Oct 1933* LKU: 28 Nov 1933
31-Cent: EKU: 4 Dec 1933* LKU: Dec 1933*

Little weird nobody can find a used 11 cent!!

Here is the page listing the LA Beer stamps from Priced Catalogue of the State and City Revenue and Tax Stamps of the United States by George D. Cabot, published 1940.

http://www.ericjackson.com/PDF/Cabot_LA.pdf