Stevens County Must Hand $15,315 Back to Its 44 Saloons
When local option shut the taps on August 23, the county discovered it had already spent the license money — and now had to borrow to refund it.
Sheriff Merritt has figured out the total amount which will have to be paid back to the saloons of the county when the local option law goes into effect August 23, and it will be $15,315.60. This is the amount which the saloons of the county have paid into the treasury from August 23, and which will have to be refunded to them under the provisions of the local option law. The total number of saloons in the county to which refunds will have to be made is 44, and there are five saloons more whose licenses expire before the local option law goes into effect.
Of the saloon license money 50 per cent goes to the school fund, 40 per cent to the incorporated city or village where the saloon is, and 10 per cent to the state. In cases where the saloon is outside the limits of a city, 40 per cent goes to the road fund of the district, 50 per cent to the schools, and 10 per cent to the state.
In August when the refund is made it will be necessary for the county to advance the money, as the $15,315.60 which the saloonmen will receive back has already been apportioned to the several funds. The county will attempt to collect the amount advanced from the several funds benefited by the license money from the taxes when paid in next winter. Some of the attorneys claim the county acts as agent in the collection of the city, village and other taxes, and that it will have no power at that time to enforce the collection from these several funds. This promises to be a question for solution when the time comes. — Sandpoint Review.
“This promises to be a question for solution when the time comes.”
A century before Washington's modern debates over sin-tax revenue and local control, Stevens County discovered the awkward arithmetic of going dry: the money was already spent. The county had to front cash to refund saloon licenses it had distributed to schools and roads, then hope it could claw the money back from taxpayers. The same tension — between moral reform and the fiscal machinery that depends on the vice it condemns — still shapes how towns budget for liquor, cannabis and gambling revenue today.
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