Seattle Slams the 'Ladies' Entrance' on Saloons
After a 2,500-name petition, the city council orders saloons to keep one street entrance and bars the screened side doors and signs that drew women in.
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Both houses of the city council passed the much-discussed ordinance relating to 'ladies' entrances' to saloons last night. The lobbies were filled by a good-sized crowd, including a scattering of women who had come to help the measure through.
A petition from about 2,500 citizens, men and women, asked for legislation on the 'ladies' entrance' question. Alderman Lovejoy introduced an ordinance providing that no saloon or other place selling intoxicating liquors should have more than one entrance, opening on the street, and no side or rear door, stairway, or elevator for customers. It also barred signs reading 'ladies' entrance,' 'private entrance,' or 'family entrance.' Violation was to be sufficient cause for revoking the license.
Jordan said he thought the ordinance ought to prohibit saloons from having little elevators by which drinks were sent upstairs. Lovejoy thought it made little difference whether drinks went upstairs on an elevator or by the stairway, but consented to join Jordan in amending the ordinance with a proviso: 'Nor shall there be used any elevator or similar device in connection with any saloon for the purpose of sending liquors to any other place than the saloon proper where the bar is kept.'
Sweeney called attention to the fact that the ordinance did not cover an instance like Sartori's saloon, where there were main entrances on James street and also Yesler avenue. Jordan replied that Mr. Sartori's saloon was respectable and was not referred to in the ordinance. Brewer said the defect could be remedied by making the ordinance read 'entrance from main street.' He was sorry the bill came up as it did, because he did not believe it would stand in its present condition. The ordinance passed, 7 to 1. Sweeney voted no and Brewer yes reluctantly, although he favored the general idea.
In the House of Delegates the ordinance was passed unanimously. Chapman said he was gratified to see so many ladies banded together to close these side entrances, 'which are adorned with blazing signs, and which are eyesores to every citizen possessed of any morals.' He added: 'If I had my way, I would make one large door, with no screen in front, so that every man, young or old, could be seen drinking and carousing, and be shown in his true light. These dens of iniquity, to which women are drawn by these signs, are a moral disgrace to the city, and it is high time they were done away with.' Voigt said he was not elected as a reformer, but thought side entrances were a bad thing; if one place of iniquity were done away with, all should be.
“These dens of iniquity, to which women are drawn by these signs, are a moral disgrace to the city, and it is high time they were done away with.”
In 1895 Seattle used liquor licensing to police the moral geography of the saloon—side doors, signs, and private entrances. Today the same arguments resurface around nightlife permits, sidewalk seating, and who gets to shape a neighborhood's entertainment district. The 2,500-name petition is a reminder that moral reform was also mass civic organizing.
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