In the Absence of Ambiguity The "Plain Meaning" of an Ordinance Controls

State v. Vasko, Minn.S.Ct., 1/18/2017. What better way is there to drive home the company line on the proper way to construe a statute than the Lester Prairie City "blight" ordinance?  Ms. Vasko was keeping a maroon Oldsmobile in her front yard; the tabs had been expired for years.  It being a quiet day in Lester Prairie the police chief took an interest in Ms. Vasko's front yard.  Eventually, the chief cited Ms. Vasko for violating the city's ordinance - did I mention that the city code is a whopping three hundred sixty-three pages, not bad for a city of 1,690 - against keeping junked cars in one's front yard. Here's what it says:

It shall be unlawful for any person . . . occupying or owning private property within the City of Lester Prairie to keep or permit to be kept any junked or abandoned vehicles or other scrap metal on such private property . . . for a period in excess of thirty (30) days without a special use permit granted by the City Council. 

Let's call this first section of the ordinance the "special use permit" section.  That's because there's another section - let's call it the "general blight" section - that identifies all manner of conditions that in the city's considered opinion constitute "blight or blighting factors," including junk vehicles and poisonous plants. This "general blight" section requires the city to give written notice to the property owner to remove the blight condition within ten days. Both sections have a penalty provision, which pronounces that it is a misdemeanor to violate "this ordinance."

The city cited only the "special use permit" language in the citation that it issued to Ms. Vasko.  Ms. Vasko took the city to trial; she said that because she had been moving the Oldsmobile in and out of her garage there was no continuous thirty days during which the car affronted the city sensibilities; and, she didn't get her ten day notice.  (She apparently fabricated a letter from the city clerk that appeared to be a "special use permit, but we don't need to go there.) She lost but the trial court imposed a petty misdemeanor sentence. Undaunted, she appealed to the court of appeals, which reversed the conviction; that court read the ordinance to create a single crime which in its view the state hadn't proved.  Justice Chutich reinstates the conviction.

The Justice said that the ordinance creates two separate crimes:  the "special use permit" crime and the "general blight" crime.  Each has its own penalty section and thus each stands separate from the other.  The court of appeals was wrong to determine that the ordinance was ambiguous and thus had no business construing it the way it did.

And the company line:

We review issues of statutory interpretation de novo. Nelson, 842 N.W.2d at 436. The purpose of statutory interpretation is to ascertain the intent of the Legislature. Christianson v. Henke, 831 N.W.2d 532, 536 (Minn. 2013). When interpreting a statute, “we give words and phrases their plain and ordinary meaning.” Premier Bank v. Becker Dev., LLC, 785 N.W.2d 753, 759 (Minn. 2010) (citing Minn. Stat. § 645.08 (2016)). “If a statute is unambiguous, then we must apply the statute’s plain meaning.” Larson v. State, 790 N.W.2d 700, 703 (Minn. 2010). If, however, a statute has more than one reasonable interpretation, then it is ambiguous, and we may apply the canons of statutory construction to determine its meaning. State v. Hayes, 826 N.W.2d 799, 804 (Minn. 2013).