The Liquor Licenses Will Pay the Police to Grow Old
A bill passed in Olympia lets first-class cities fund police pensions out of saloon fees — twenty years on the beat and half pay for life.
OLYMPIA, Feb. 12. — The house yesterday passed the Tennant police pension bill for cities of the first class, providing that cities may create a police pension fund from a percentage of the liquor license revenue and put all officers on half pay when they have served 20 years, and retire them. Men injured receive benefits also, and the families of officers killed on duty are given $1,000.
“Cities may create a police pension fund from a percentage of the liquor license revenue and put all officers on half pay when they have served 20 years, and retire them.”
Washington's first police pension scheme was floated on liquor licence money — the saloons underwriting the men who patrolled them. Tacoma officers today are covered by a statewide pension system and the saloon tax is long gone, but the underlying question, who pays for the retirement and the funerals of the people we arm, has never really been settled.
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