Request By:
Mr. Luther C. Conner, Jr.
Clinton County Attorney
Granville Hotel Building
Albany, Kentucky 42602
Opinion
Opinion By: Robert F. Stephens, Attorney General; By: Charles W. Runyan, Assistant Deputy Attorney General
Your question is whether an outdoor rock and roll music festival, to be held on a Clinton County farm for two days, would be considered a "place of entertainment" , as defined by KRS 231.010. The farm owner intends to have various bands and singing groups perform on his farm, which is outside any corporate limits. The hours are between noon and midnight for two days only. Admission will be charged.
KRS 231.010 defines a "place of entertainment" , which is subject to a permit issued by the county court. The "place of entertainment" must be outside of corporate limits of a city. KRS 231.020.
KRS 231.010 reads:
"As used in this chapter, 'place of entertainment' means a roadhouse, place offering intoxicating or nonintoxicating drinks for sale, tourist camp or place of public entertainment at which people assemble to eat, drink, dance, bathe, or engage in any game or amusement, or any place having therein or thereon any person engaging in the practice of being a medium, clairvoyant, soothsayer, palmist, phrenologist, spiritualist, or like activity, or one who, with or without the use of cards, crystal ball, tea leaves, or any other object or device, engages in the practice of telling the fortune of another; but this last clause shall not be construed to apply to persons pretending to tell fortunes as part of any play, exhibition, fair or amateur show presented or offered by any religious, charitable, or benevolent institution. It shall not mean a private home at which bona fide guests are entertained, drive-in theaters, places of business conducted only as filling stations for motor vehicles or grocery stores, nor transient or temporary entertainment such as circuses, carnivals and county fairs."
It is our opinion that the rock and roll festival comes within the language of the exception to KRS 231.010, namely, the phrase, "transient or temporary entertainment. " The rock and roll music entertainment is purely a transient and temporary entertainment, and thus the affair does not constitute a "place of entertainment" , as envisioned by KRS 231.010. It is our view that where the statute specifies "transient and temporary entertainment" as an exception, followed immediately by the phrase "such as circuses, carnivals and county fairs," the use of the phrase "such as" indicates that circuses, carnivals and county fairs are not considered as the exclusive categories coming within the phrase "transient or temporary entertainment. " (Emphasis added). The doctrine of "expressio unius est exclusio alterius" [the enumeration of particular things excludes the idea of something else not mentioned] is a primary rule of statutory construction, and is not a rule of substantive law. And the rule is not to be applied where the intention of the act is clear. City of Lexington v. Edgerton, 289 Ky. 815, 159 S.W.2d 1015 (1941) 1017. Here it is clear in reading KRS 231.010 that circuses, carnivals and county fairs were not intended to be the exclusive or only categories falling under the phrase "transient or temporary entertainment. " The term "such as" merely means "for example."