The Midnight Saloon Standoff
Yakima city officials move to enforce a midnight closing time for local taverns, triggering immediate defiance from saloon owners.
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.
At the meeting of the council Monday evening, a resolution was passed to close all the saloons at midnight. Every member voted in favor of the resolution excepting Councilman John Reed, who opposed it by voice and vote. It was suggested that it would require an ordinance to enforce the movement, but Mayor Weed thought if the saloon men were notified by the marshal of the action of the council, it would be sufficient. This the marshal did after adjournment, but it didn’t seem to have much effect. One saloon was closed promptly at midnight, but as there was nothing in the resolution regarding the time for reopening, the place was again running in full blast a few minutes later. The saloon men do not propose to abide by the resolution, and if an ordinance is passed to close them up, they intend to fight it. They claim that they have paid a thousand dollar license for the privilege of conducting their business, and if they are to be restricted and compelled to close half of the time, they will insist on half of the license money being returned.
“The saloon men do not propose to abide by the resolution, and if an ordinance is passed to close them up, they intend to fight it.”
The tension between local government authority and business owners over operating hours is a perennial issue in Yakima. Today, the debate centers on zoning and nuisance ordinances, but the core argument—that license fees buy a right to operate that local government cannot arbitrarily truncate—remains an echo of this 1891 skirmish.
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