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Show BOOZE CARRIERS STEAK WORTH RUM BLOCKADE IS SENDING UP PRICE OF. LIQUOR ALONG COAST LINES Many Ships Have Pulled Up Anchor And Left For Ports Unknown; Pacific Coast Being Carefully Guarded San Pedro, Cal. Rum runners, hijackers hi-jackers and law enforcement officers are waging a triangular war here for control of Ban Pedro harbor. Police and federal prohibition agents admitted they had little success suc-cess In stemming the flow of Illicit liquor from a rum fleet of five vessels ves-sels said to be lying off the coast between be-tween here and San Diego, but declared de-clared they had evidence to show !that hijackers were making It hot for 'the rum smugglers. Reports were being Investigated of a shooting affray which took place pon the road between White Point and Point Firmln, overlooking the harbor. A large truck followed closely by a touring car, was attacked by another touring car, residents of the outlying district told police, and volleys of pistol shots were exchanged. Shortly after the shooting, investigators inves-tigators ran onto a skidway, leading clown the steep slope of a bluff to the water's edge. A truck apparently had been used to operate the tackle with which a cargo had been dragged up the skidway onto the highway and police expressed the opinion this may have been the same truck attacked by the hijackers. Between $10,000 and $20,00 worth of whisky is being landed in or near the harbor daily, officers estimated, adding frankly that the impouring of liquor will continue so long as they are handicapped by entire lack of fast small boats with which to patrol the port. Approximately half a hundred police po-lice and federal men are watching the scores of likely landing places , within the harbor district. So far i the liquor runners have not been I pressed to land their cargoes in iso lated aoves far from the city, it being be-ing a comparatively simple matter to put the rum ashore once they have : run the gauntlet of the Vaughan and ; Tamora, two coast guard cutters at- j tempting to blockade the liquor fleet. ! New York. The price of liquor, going up in New York, is going down in California. The reason is the dry navy's blockade of the east coast j rum row. 1 Many of the ships unable to do bus iness here have sailed for the Pacific coast, -where customers are reported to be bringing loads ashore regular-. ., ly without difficulty. ; Some estimates placed the value of I whisky landed in and around San ! Diego within the past 48 hours, at : more than $200,000. As a result the bottom has fallen out of the gin market mark-et in California. Scotch is reported to be selling for $4 a quart in Los Angeles, compared with previous prices pri-ces of $6 to $9. Two cutters are reported re-ported as unable to cope with six rum ships off Southern'1 California. New York Newspapers say that though liquor is still plentiful here, it is coming from reserve stocks and wholesale prices have gone up $10 to $15 a case, ashore, since the blockade block-ade started. The World says that champagne, which formerly sold at $85 or $90 a case, now costs $100. Rye whisky is very rare, and Scotch is as high as $60 a case. |