Can a convicted felon have a right to a license?

In Picone v. Commissioner of Licenses of City of N. Y., 241 N.Y. 157, 149 N.E. 336, an application for a junk boat license had been denied on the grounds that the applicant had no license for a land-based junk shop and that it was desirable to limit the number of junk boat licenses since, among other things, various complaints had been made of thefts committed by licensed junk boats from vessels in the harbor. In reversing the Commissioner's determination, this court noted (241 N.Y. at

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In Arroyo v. Moss, 269 App.Div. 824, 56 N.Y.S.2d 17, affirmed 295 N.Y. 754, 65 N.E.2d 570, petitioner's barber license was suspended shortly after it was issued on the grounds that he had failed to disclose three misdemeanor convictions for unlawful possession of policy slips in his application for the license (he disclosed one such conviction), and had failed to appear, as directed, before the Commissioner. The applicable statute prohibited issuance or renewal of a barber's license to felons, unless otherwise determined by the Commissioner. A rehearing was had, at which petitioner admitted all four convictions, but the Commissioner refused to reinstate the license on the principal ground that his illegal and criminal activities made him an unfit person to be the holder of a barber license, and his determination was upheld by this court.