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Nebraska liquor board takes first step in process that could lead to closing of beer stores in Whiteclay

Nebraska liquor board takes first step in process that could lead to closing of beer stores in Whiteclay

Source: Omaha World-Herald

By Paul Hammel

November 1, 2016

Beer stores in Whiteclay, Nebraska, sell the equivalent of 3.5 million cans of beer a year, mostly to the residents of the officially dry Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, which is across the state line in South Dakota. Some want the Nebraska Liquor Control Commission to shut down those stores.

An elected official in the county that includes Whiteclay, Nebraska, said Tuesday that closing the four beer-only liquor stores there would be “the dumbest thing they could do.”

“I don’t believe it would cure any of the problems, and probably (would) give us more,” Sheridan County Board member Jack Andersen said. “I know I wouldn’t vote to deny a license up there.”

On Tuesday, the Nebraska Liquor Control Commission, citing questions about inadequate law enforcement in the tiny village, voted 3-0 to require the four stores to reapply for their liquor licenses. That is an involved process that will require a review by the County Board, probably a public hearing and then a final vote by the liquor commission, probably in February.

At the end of the process, the board could decide to revoke the liquor licenses, but it could also re-approve them, perhaps imposing new restrictions or conditions on beer sales. However, several past attempts by the liquor commission to crack down on the Whiteclay stores have resulted in no changes.

The vote was, potentially, the beginning of a big change in Whiteclay, an unincorporated village where beer stores dispense the equivalent of 3.5 million cans of beer a year, mostly to residents of the impoverished, and officially dry, Pine Ridge Indian Reservation just across the Nebraska-South Dakota border.

The sales have been blamed for liquor-related problems on the reservation, which include epidemic rates of alcoholism, high rates of alcohol-related crime and an estimated one-in-four children being born with fetal alcohol-related symptoms.

Activists have long sought to close down the liquor stores in a village known as the “skid row of the Plains.” They cheered Tuesday’s vote, saying it was the first step in a long process to shutter businesses that they say are predatory.

“We should thank (the liquor commission), but what we’re asking them is what they should have done 18 years ago,” said Frank LaMere of South Sioux City, a Winnebago activist who helped bring public attention to Whiteclay in the northwest corner of the state.

“Basically, what the commission has done is to enforce the law,” said Dennis Carlson, a retired lawyer from Lincoln who also has campaigned for closing the liquor stores.

“Adequate” law enforcement is a requirement for the state to allow liquor sales in a community or neighborhood, and activists have long argued that Whiteclay is lawless. The village has no local law enforcement, and Rushville, the Sheridan County seat and home to the Sheriff’s Office, is 22 miles away.

In June, John Maisch, a former liquor enforcement attorney in Oklahoma who produced a documentary on Whiteclay, released an analysis of response times to calls of assaults and “trouble with drunks” in the village. It took 45 minutes to more than an hour for a deputy to arrive to most of the calls.

Maisch also released a report, based on county records, showing that Sheridan County spent about one-third of its $5.2 million general fund budget on law enforcement, jail and court expenses. Much of it was associated with arrests in Whiteclay.

He also has cited the slow response to the beating death of a Native American woman, Sherry Wounded Foot, in Whiteclay in August as part of a “steady stream of evidence.”

On Oct. 11, Andersen, the County Board member, told a panel of state lawmakers that his county could use more money to patrol Whiteclay.

But he said Tuesday that it’s incorrect to conclude that he thinks law enforcement there is inadequate. “What I was saying is that we could sure use some help in funding,” he said. “I think we’re enforcing the laws up there just as good as anywhere else in the county.”

Sheridan County, a ranching area of 2,470 square miles, is bigger than two states, Delaware and Rhode Island. Andersen’s home in Lakeside, Nebraska, is about 48 miles from the county seat. He said if he sees someone breaking into his house, he knows that a sheriff’s deputy won’t get there soon enough to stop the thief. “Thank goodness, we don’t need law enforcement very often,” he said.

Whiteclay’s problems, he said, are caused across the border at the Pine Ridge Reservation. Unemployment there, which has been estimated at 80 to 90 percent, leaves people with nothing to do and plenty of time to cause trouble, Andersen said.

If the Whiteclay liquor stores were shut down, he said, people would just drive farther to purchase alcohol, possibly leading to more drunken driving.

“Our best hope is they would go to some town in South Dakota instead of Rushville, Gordon, Hay Springs and Chadron (in Nebraska),” Andersen said.

Two members of the Liquor Control Commission, Bruce Bailey and Bob Batt, said Tuesday that they voted to require the “long form” reapplication process due to concerns expressed by Andersen and others about the shortage of law enforcement in Whiteclay.

But Batt, an Omaha businessman, said there have always been questions about what the liquor commission can legally do. “There’s not one of us who believes that it’s not a bad situation (in Whiteclay),” he said.

After Tuesday’s meeting, LaMere criticized Gov. Pete Ricketts for sending state troopers to North Dakota to handle protests over the Dakota Access pipeline instead of devoting them to Whiteclay.

Ricketts, at a Lincoln press conference Tuesday, defended his decision to lend state troopers to North Dakota, saying it was part of a multistate compact that has benefited Nebraska in the past.

“North Dakota’s request through (the compact) for additional law enforcement is helping protect public safety. The charges filed against the protester who fired gunshots at officers last week demonstrate the need for the increased law enforcement resources,” Ricketts said later through his spokesman.

As for Whiteclay, the governor said the number of enforcement hours of the State Patrol in Whiteclay increased from an average of 256 a year between 2002 and 2015 to 485 hours so far this year.

Activists, though, point out that the increase was only possible due to a federal grant, which tends to back up their contention that law enforcement, without the short-term grant, is lacking.

A task force appointed by Ricketts has called for the state to place a state trooper or special deputy in the village to increase law enforcement.

Owners of two Whiteclay liquor stores, State Line Liquors and the Jumping Eagle Inn, declined to comment Tuesday, saying they were conferring with attorneys. Owners of the other stores, Pioneer Services and the Arrowhead Inn, did not return phone messages.

In the past, liquor store owners have said that they comply with state liquor laws and that the alcohol-related problems at the Pine Ridge Reservation is a broad problem that won’t go away if the Whiteclay stores are closed down.