The New Year’s Eve Saloon Standoff
Prosser voters went 'dry,' but local saloonkeepers are refusing to close their doors.
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.
Up in the county seat, watching the Old Year out and the New Year in will be merely incidental to watching whether or not the doors of Prosser’s two saloons go shut. Prosser voted 'dry' with a bang last month, but now it looks as though the county seat dwellers would be given a chance to slake their thirsts at public emporiums for another year. At least there is going to be a scrap about it. In voting, the town went doubly 'dry.' The people gave the state-wide prohibition measure a comfortable majority and a majority of nine to abolish the saloons under the local option law. Ordinarily, this would have put the town dry January 1, 1915, under the latter and permanently dry a year later under the former. The two saloonkeepers’ attorney, H. J. Snively, of North Yakima, has advised them to continue business after New Year’s, for the passage of the prohibition measure nullified the effect of the local option law. If this advice is followed and the saloons open their doors, court proceedings will undoubtedly follow.
“watching the Old Year out and the New Year in will be merely incidental to watching whether or not the doors of Prosser’s two saloons go shut with a bang.”
This tug-of-war between local sentiment and state-wide mandate remains a hallmark of Washington politics. While the battleground has shifted from saloons to modern zoning and tax policies, the tension between a town's autonomy and the state's reach remains as palpable today as it was in 1914.
From readers
No comments yet. If you know something about this story — a correction, a family memory, a source — it belongs here.