City of East St. Louis v. Wehrung

This was a prosecution for keeping a dramshop, and selling intoxicating liquors without a license. It is urged for the defendant that the ordinance is void, because the constitution requires taxes imposed by municipal corporations to be uniform in respect to persons and property within their jurisdiction, and the ordinance in question imposes a differential license, according to the street on which the dram shop is located. But the sufficient answer to this position is, that, as settled by a former decision of this court, a license is not a tax, in the constitutional sense of that term: The…