nstances is said to outweigh the advantages of a
slower procedure, retarded by previous notice and hearing, and to
require that the person adversely affected seek his remedy from the
Court via a petition to review or to enjoin the decision of the
licensing authorities.[742]

For like reasons, the owner of property about to be impounded or
destroyed by officers acting in furtherance of the police power may
justifiably be relegated to post mortem remedies in the form of a suit
for damages against the officer effecting the seizure or destruction,
or, if time permits, a bill in equity for an injunction. Thus, due
process of law is not denied the custodian of food in cold storage by
enforcement of a city ordinance under which such food, when unfit for
human consumption, may summarily be seized, condemned, and destroyed
without a preliminary hearing. "If a party cannot get his hearing in
advance of the seizure and destruction he has the right to have it
afterward, * * * in an action brought for the destruction of his
property, and in that action those who destroyed it can only
successfully defend if the jury shall find the fact of unwholesomeness
as claimed by them."[743] Similarly, if the owner of liquor, possession
of which has been made unlawful, can secure a hearing by instituting
injunction proceedings, he is not denied due process by the failure to
grant him a hearing before seizure and destruction of his property.[744]
Indeed, even when no emergency exists, such as is provided by a
conflagration or threatened epidemic, and the property in question is
not intrinsically harmful, mere use in violation of a valid police power
regulation has been held to justify summary destruction. Thus, in the
much criticized case of Lawton _v._ Steele,[745] the destruction,
without prior notice and hearing, of fishing nets set in violation of a
conservation law defining them to be a nuisance was sustained on the
ground that the property was not "of great value." Conceding that "it is
not easy to draw the line between cases where property illegally used
may be destroyed summarily and where judicial proceedings are necessary
for its condemnation," the Court acknowledged that "if the property were
of great value, as, for instance, if it were a vessel employed for
smuggling or other illegal purposes, it would be * * * dangerous * * *
to permit * * * [an officer] to sell or destroy it as a public nuisance,
* * * But where the property is of t