City Hall's Saloon Showdown
A legislative battle over liquor limits and grade taxes highlights the growing pains of a booming Seattle.
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.
The house of delegates, in regular session last night, killed the bill passed by the aldermen abolishing the saloon limits. The vote was 10 to 4. The aldermen's bill providing for an assistant to the corporation counsel to collect delinquent grade taxes was referred to the committee of the whole. Regarding local disputes, a special committee reported that J.F. Belts should have his liquor license revoked, noting that Belts 'pretends to have sold out to his brother, but is believed to be lying around for the affair to blow over.' Additionally, the council heard reports regarding street improvements, including planking Madison Street between Williamson and Division streets, and authorized new electric lighting at Tenth and Pike streets. A petition by John Graf, proprietor of the Terrace House on the corner of Fifth and Terrace streets, requested that the city consider the purchase of his property, which had been badly damaged by the grading of Terrace Street.
“The committee reported that, from the evidence presented, the license ought to be revoked; that Belts pretends to have sold out to his brother, but is believed to be lying around for the affair to blow over, and then come back and run the saloon again.”
The 1891 struggle over where saloons could operate and how property owners were compensated for 'grade taxes' mirrors today's intense municipal debates over zoning and the public cost of infrastructure improvements. The mention of Madison Street and Terrace Street reminds us that while the street names remain, the neighborhoods they traverse have been completely transformed by over a century of development.
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