Show MUST IT BE LICENSE THE LIQUOR FOLI HANDLED city hornes able on the situation the city council met in sion on tuesday evening last to consider the question of abolishing the prohibitory liquor ordinance the mayor presided absentees alderman dunn and councillors councilors Counci lors daniels and bean the report of the city attorney was presented and read as follows april to the honorable taw city council of provo city GENTLEMEN in pursuance of the request made by your honorable body at your regular session april 2 herewith submit such information as lies within my knowledge concerning the operation of the prohibition hibi tion liquor ordinance together with its effectiveness or otherwise as a remedy against the indiscriminate sale of intoxicating liquors it is perhaps just to myself to ay that some weeks prior to the election of the present council I 1 formulated a rough draft of a report upon this question with a view of submitting to your predecessors but about the time I 1 intended to present it an extraordinary tra ordinary and unusual agitation not without to some extent arose among the citizens of our community over the all absorb ing question the apparent unrestrained sale of intoxicating liquor in that season of excitement it being just upon the eve of our municipal election in many instances invective and unmerited abuse assumed the place of reason vituperation and calumny to some extent became the order of ilo day and misguided reason prejudice unfounded became so intense that some members of the council together with executive officers with whom I 1 was more immediately associated officially deemed it imprudent and unwise to submit my report to the council inasmuch as the further responsibility of dealing with the question would to all human ap pe arances devolve upon a council composed of new mem berd acting upon this suggestion of brother officers which I 1 believed and still bo giove was for the best good of the community I 1 deferred my intended report until such time as your honorable body might deem it proper and expedient the policy of the ordinance in question or of any municipal ordinance within the corporate authority of the city is a matter with which I 1 have no concern except as a citizen nor would I 1 intentionally trespass upon that forbidden ground the policy belongs alone to you the execution devolves upon me and the other executive officers whom you have honored with appointment there is but little use of denying the fact that intoxicating liquors in spite of the ordinance are being sold today to day almost indiscriminately in at least six places within our city and within a block and a half of where you now sit in your deliberations in at least four of these places if not five I 1 am reliably im formed regular counters whiskey decanters bar glasses and all the accoutrements and paraphernalia of the bar room are in active use and operation well founded rumor says that at some places gambling is carried on in connection with the business but this I 1 will not assert officially these places of business or most of them operating under the guise and semblance of drug stores under the pretense of carrying on a highly necessary and legitimate business are open without the power of restraint all hours of tho night and of the sabbath day and under the same pretense without restraint the respected citizen tha habitual drunkard and the minor including children of every age enter those places many no doubt on legitimate business but others and I 1 fear the greater num f her go in some of these places at least to purchase liquor and carry it away in bottles or revel in the back rooms clubrooms clubroom a and collars as the case may be and that too I 1 am constrained to say with less restraint and less fear for their reputations than could possibly exist under any other system of dealing with this traffic that these institutions are becoming wealthy and flourishing like the green bay tree is self evident and cannot be disputed we have only to point to the unmistakable evidences of their manifest prosperity which greet us on every hand that they have not acquired their wealth and prosperity by alfe legitimate sale of drugs or by any business pretended to be legitimate by the dazzling allurements allure ments and gaudy show of honorable business as displayed in front rooms is equally self evident and equally indisputable it would be an insult to your intelligence to attempt by sophistical reasons and explanations to convince the rapidly augmenting prosperity of these institutions most of them at least is not entirely due to the illicit gale of intoxicating liquors I 1 do not believe the picture js overdrawn ilia one are all more or less familiar those who profess to bo most innocent and most ignorant complain at least that liquor is sold a divers places within our city without discrimination if I 1 believed that any city officer or all combined were wilfully responsible for this alarming evil I 1 would unhesitatingly assert though a large portion of tho responsibility thereby devolve upon myself as city attorney that ho or they as the caso may be would deserve tho everlasting reproach of the demple of this community for certainly by our failures to successfully enforce the ordinance As a city wo have become a hiss and a byo word whenever our attempt at prohibition is known and understood what I 1 havo stated thus far I 1 believe to bo a correct portrayal of facts as they exist what is the cause of the alarming proportions that this gigantic evil has assumed why the fail ure of our prohibitory ordinance some attribute it to one cause some to another and some to several causes combined some contend that it is because members of the city council and city officers have not always been pro in practice as welt as theory some contend that it is bo cause tho moral sentiment of the people is against it or at least not strong enough in favor of it others contend and perhaps with greater reason that if all the officers of the city were absolute and earnest workers in the cause of prohibition that if the city treasury was plethoric with funds available for the prosecution of liquor sellers that if the moral sentiment of the people were strongly in favor of prohibition still as long as appeals can be taken to the district court without expense to the defendant as long as these appeals can bo postponed almost indefinitely on account f the multiplicity of business in the appellate court and lastly as long as these cases when ultimately they are reached must bo tried by jurors many of whom will visit the defendants place of business and drink with him dubinar the progress of his trial for violating the or dinah ce just so long prohibition must and will prove a futile endeavor perhaps each of these causes in a greater or less degree contribute its mite to the failure of prohibition bushere is one thing of which I 1 am positive that those who attribute the present condition entirely to the want of an honest effort of the city government ern ment if they are honest in their belief are not only themselves treading the labyrinths of darkness but are unintentionally misleading the public mind directing it in wrong channels and causing the people to search for the root of the evil in places where it does not exist As bearing upon the question of moral sentiment a summary view of our municipal history for a period of five years will not be out of place in this connection I 1 was city attorney iu iho month of december 1882 and have held the office by successive appointments from that time till lowi with perhaps two or three exceptions I 1 have personally prosecuted every liquor case both in the municipal and district courts during that time I 1 speak officially and with knowledge and assert that with the of one case at the beginning of the present year during all that time not one citizen of provo be he a believer in prohibition or any other system has ever volunteered information to myself or any other officer io my knowledge that would lead to the conviction of a single offender not citizen with the sagle exception named has ever been willing to swear out a complaint except for hire or to volunteer information as a witness at the trial except upon the same conditions dit ions I 1 except a few cases perhaps half a dozen in all where parties haying a temporary grievance of heir own by way of retaliation assumed the role of unwilling witnesses and suffered themselves to bo forced apparently to disclose the truth men have been free to talk fault and claim to knoer of actual violations of the law and have up braided officers for neglect of duty but when pressed by these same officers to make a formal complaint of violations which they professed to bo cognizant of they have given us to understand that they were not en in the spotting business nor is this all during the five years that I 1 have served as city attorney so far as my knowledge extends not one citizen has ever donated a single dollar independent of usual taxes to aid in the prosecution of whisky cases I 1 except the city marshal who I 1 believe has not been reimbursed for money advanced by him in this direction but on the contrary during the agitation upon this question in the winter of 1887 a clause was inserted in the remonstrance against the repeal of the prohibition hibi tion ordinance requesting tha council to increase taxation if need be for the purpose of maintaining the liquor ordinance but the clause was stricken out and the remonstrance was presented to the city council without it having been inserted in the remonstrance the striking of it out had a signify cance it meant that while the people favored prohibition they were not ready to submit to increased taxation to aid in bringing it about if it did not mean that 1 am at a loss to know the real significance it reminds one of a certain class of democrats during the war they were in favor of maintaining the union at all hazards they were in favor of crushing the rebellion but they were opposed to coercion they were opposed to raising armies and they were opposed to maintaining them after they were raised in short they were unconditionally and unalterably opposed to the war I 1 do not speak thus lightly of the so called moral sentiment without duly appreciating what I 1 believe to be the fact that most of the people of this community are honestly in favor of prohibition hibi tion if it could be do not believe in our situation that even money could accomplish the purpose benco their opposition moral sentiment does exist but it does not manifest itself in the form of material support it has not been used to strengthen the hands of those charged with the duty of enforcing abo ordinance ii has not ife self in the shape of means to this end it has not even illumed the form cf temperance associations pledged to the support of the municipal government by organized effort it hy not come in the form of willing nor in any manner by which tho city could be macio to feel that it was being heartily sustained and endorsed auts attempt to enforce the ordinance alt it has manifested itself in fault anding vituperation and abuse in this condition of affairs the city during idl these years hoi had but one recourse that is to use the ordinary contingent revenue for the prosecution of these cases and when was exhausted caaso or plunge in debt and impair tho credit of the city this oven has been done and city officers whom fahme people delight to find fault with havo in many instances been compelled to discount the scrip received by them in payment of their meagre fees and salaries As to the work accomplished by the city officers during the period of five years this much can bo and ought to bo baid evory dollar that has been placed in their hands for the prosecution of liquor cases has been honestly expended in that direction and honestly accounted for to the council every complaint that has ever been preferred upon which a conviction could possibly be hoped for has been honestly prosecuted in tho courts every case that has been appealed to the district courts that could be prosecuted with reasonable hopes of success have been prosecuted and I 1 may add every case that could be brought to trial and prosecuted in the district court has been pushed with energy and in every instance the city has obtained a veri diet except in one case last fall when the jury failed to agree notwithstanding comments and criticisms I 1 cannot help but point with pride to this record both on my own account and and upon thai of brother officers the difficulty has been in being utterly to bring cases to trial in the district court owing to the crowded condition of tho calendar until the witnesses have either left the country forgotten the facts or refused to appear there hay not been a time during the last two years until the present term of court that more than one or two appeal cases could be reached and tried and in some of the terms we have noi been able to reach tho trial of even one each of these cases costa the city before it roaches tho district court from twenty five to forty dollars thus far it costs the defendant nothing in order to avoid the expense of detective service upon one occasion we tried the experiment of arresting two young mon as they came out of a drug store with bottles in their hands ye placed the parties upon the stand believing that under pressure they would tell the truth the result was thoy swore tho liquor was given to them and stoutly main bained that position throughout tho trial some weeks after however thoy confessed to havo committed willful and deliberate perjury in conclusion permit me to say as city attorney I 1 shall uso my best endeavors to enforce any ordinances that the council in its wisdom may ordain but there is one thing that ought to be understood liquor cases can not bo obtained in provo city without money any more than the israelites could make bricks without straw if it be the policy of the city council to continue in force the present ordinance and that is a matter for them to decide I 1 recommend two things first an amendment of the present ordinance di nance increasing the facility of obtaining information and second the raising of an adequate fund by increased taxation or otherwise to effectually if possible enforce the ordinance di nance I 1 have not been able to furnish at this time such statistics as ought to be a part of this report but I 1 will furnish them as soon as the clerk of tho district court can furnish them to me but in so far as I 1 have undertaken to detail actual facts I 1 am of the opinion I 1 have kept safely within the pales of veracity respectfully submitted SAMUEL R city attorney mr holdaway moved that the report bo referred and made a speech in endorsement dor of the conduct of the executive officers of the city he had foun d he said that these officers had faithfully performed their duties in connection with the enforcement of the prohibitory ordinance and all other ordinances he styled the prohibitory hibi tory ordinance as a farce and traced the growth of the illicit liquor selling he denounced in scathing language critics and criticism ing on tho acts of the council and the officers he thought the question a to whether there should bo licensing or not ought to be submitted to tho people fie was in earnest and pro posed to bring the matter to an issue and declared himself in favor of high license mr farrer followed in iho same strain he thought the present tem was productive of lying and deceit advocated open saloons in preference to the secret arns mr talmadgo moved M an amend ment to mr Holda ways motion that the committee report at the next regular meeting there was no second the motion for the reference was then adopted mr maidens Mai bens motion of monday evening was called up mr holdaway moved that the maiben motion lie on the table the motion |