The Saloon Keepers' New Political Machine
Facing a midnight closing law and new regulatory costs, Seattle’s tavern owners band together to secure their influence at City Hall.
The story, cleaned up
A cleaned-up reading of the newspaper page: spelling and layout repaired, one story lifted off a crowded page. It follows the original closely but it is not a transcription. The original page is below; read it if a detail matters.
The attempt of the city council to pass a 12 o'clock closing ordinance, which appears to have been nipped by the sudden disappearance of the bill, has caused the saloonkeepers to organize for mutual protection. The Retail Liquor Dealers' Protective Association has been incorporated. It is proposed by the members to act in a body on all questions in which the interests of their business are involved, whether to contest the validity of a law or to pull political strings. One ordinance objectionable to the association is the one requiring keepers of saloons to place an electric light in front of their places of business, which one member remarked 'savors too much of standing in with the electric light company.' It is proposed to fight hard against any ordinance closing saloons at 12 o'clock or at any other hour of the night, or against any regulation calling for closed places on Sunday. To contest such laws, the association will bear the expenses of test cases. Nearly all of the 120 saloons in this city are represented in this association, and already quite a sum of money has been paid into the treasury.
“It savors too much of standing in with the electric light company.”
The tension between 'law and order' morality and the local nightlife industry remains a perennial Seattle theme. While today's battles involve noise ordinances and zoning rather than 12 o'clock closing bills, the instinct of local business owners to form political coalitions to protect their bottom line from City Hall is as relevant as it was in 1893.
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