The Sunday Saloon Scramble
A Seattle judge faces a conundrum from a frustrated Grand Jury: if a hotel or drug store is allowed to stay open on Sunday, exactly who gets to drink?
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 Grand Jury, in open court, handed Judge Greene a set of written questions regarding the state's Sunday trade laws. They noted that testimony had been produced before them that liquors and cigars were being sold at the bar of a hotel, with proprietors claiming immunity for sales to 'guests.' The Grand Jury asked: Does any immunity exist to any class of purchasers on Sunday? Can a drug store sell cigars or other items beyond drugs?
Judge Greene provided a strict interpretation: 'The prohibition is evidently general... It would be contrary to the spirit of the law for anyone to attempt to carry on any of these prohibited businesses under the cover of a hotel business, a drug business, a livery stable or undertaking business.' He cited the example of a dry goods merchant trying to move stock into an undertaking shop to sell it on Sunday, calling it an obvious evasion. Regarding hotels, the Judge ruled that a 'guest' was not merely anyone who walked in to buy a drink. 'He should be a person who is boarding or lodging at the hotel.' Anything else, he concluded, was a violation of the law that any person with common sense would recognize.
“It would be contrary to the spirit of the law for any one to attempt to carry on any of these prohibited businesses under the cover of a hotel business... and to the mind of any person with common sense it would be an evasion of the law.”
This 1882 struggle over 'Sunday laws' and how to define a legitimate business vs. a loophole mirrors modern Seattle debates about the regulatory boundaries of 'mixed-use' spaces and the uneven enforcement of liquor laws. Then, as now, the law was a tool for moral regulation that business owners were constantly trying to navigate through clever (and often desperate) reclassifications.
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