The Prohibition Crackdown on the Yakima Cafe
Following a quiet investigation, police raid a local eatery and seize over sixty pints of illicit alcohol.
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Charlie Yuen, proprietor of the Yakima Cafe, was this afternoon fined $250 and costs, amounting to $270, in Police Justice Staser's court for violation of city ordinance No. 190, the provisions of which are identical with those of the state prohibition law. Yuen pleaded guilty to three charges: two for selling liquor and one for possession of more than the legal allowance. The case followed quiet investigations by Sheriff Duffy and Chief of Police B. E. Copeland. The raid on the cafe resulted in the seizure of 54 pints of beer, several gallons of wine and whiskey, and a quart of Pebbleford whiskey, all of which will be destroyed.
“Numerous complaints that a blind pig was in operation in the city have been made to the officers who started out the first of the week to round up all available evidence.”
Long before national Prohibition, Washington cities like Kennewick grappled with their own dry ordinances. The 1916 raid on the Yakima Cafe highlights the intense local enforcement that often targeted immigrant-owned businesses during the temperance era.
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