The Saloon Turf War: Seattle's 1891 Zoning Scandal

The proposition to repeal the ordinance which limits the district within which drinking saloons may be maintained in this city is a very improper one, and that it should have passed the Board of Aldermen is a very surprising fact. There is no objection on the part of reasonable people to extension of the saloon limits from time to time to keep pace with the widening business district of the city. But to permit saloons to be established here, there and everywhere all over town would be an outrageous thing. Not only will the public disapprove of it, but it will not submit to it. The scheme is a job devised in the interests of those who make profit by the promotion of vice, and it is a most extraordinary thing that the Board of Aldermen should, by a vote almost unanimous, permit it to go through. Since the Aldermen have thus permitted themselves to be successfully managed by the whisky interest, the public will now look to the House of Delegates to block the game. It is the duty of this body to reject this proposition and to do it with an emphasis that will show the whisky interest of Seattle that under this new administration it will be subject to limitation and control.