Request By:
Mr. J. R. Williamson
Box 344
Hawesville, Kentucky 42348
Opinion
Opinion By: Robert F. Stephens, Attorney General; By: Walter C. Herdman, Assistant Deputy Attorney General
This is in answer to your letter of recent date in which you question the right of the city to impose a $2.50 penalty for your failure to purchase an automobile license sticker within the time prescribed by ordinance.
It is well settled in this state that every city has the power to levy a license fee not only on resident automobiles but also nonresident automobiles where such are operated daily within the city. This authority is based upon the ground that the license is not a property tax but one imposed by virtue of the city's police power for the use of the city streets. See
Commonwealth v. Kelly, 229 Ky. 722, 17 S.W.2d 1017 (1929);
Johnson v. City of Paducah, 285 Ky. 294, 147 S.W.2d 721 (1941);
City of Mayfield v. Carter Hardward Co., 191 Ky. 364, 230 S.W. 298 (1921);
Watson v. City of Paducah, 312 Ky. 680, 229 S.W.2d 453 (1950); and
City of Georgetown v. Morrison, Ky., 362 S.W.2d 289 (1962).
The city, in enacting an ordinance requiring automobiles using the streets of the city regularly to have affixed a sticker as authorized above, may provide in said ordinance an enforcement penalty not to exceed $100 under the terms of KRS 87.060(1), which reads as follows:
"(1) The city council may impose fines, penalties and forfeitures for violations of ordinances, and fix the penalty by fine or imprisonment, or both. No penalty or fine shall exceed one hundred dollars ($100), and no term of imprisonment shall exceed fifty (50) days."
Thus, the penalty imposed for failure to acquire the automobile sticker within the time prescribed by ordinance would appear to be legal.