Rockdale County v. Mitchell's Used Auto Parts, Inc.

Hall, Justice.

In 1978 a suit was brought by numerous Rockdale County business concerns challenging the constitutionality of a newly-enacted county ordinance requiring a fence and buffer space around all open storage and junkyard businesses. Section 4 of the ordinance provided a variance procedure. Without hearing any evidence, the trial court ruled that the ordinance was valid for future businesses but was invalid on its face as applied to preexisting businesses, and that such preexisting businesses must be either "grandfathered” into the regulation scheme or proceeded against by eminent…