OCR Text |
Show OPINIONS "w- To sum up we believe your intentions are honorable honor-able as we knowours are. However, we doubt that either ei-ther one of us have enough recent experience in the local pubs to sit in judgment. We sjggest we let the courts decide. "Red" Dear Editor: I should like to comment on some remarks you made in your column in last week's newspaper. As information to you and some of your friends, the Relief Society does not play Bingo or any type of card games. The Relief Society is a women's service organization. Their main purpose is to strengthen strength-en the home, not tear it down as the gambling and drinking involvement does. The Relief Society has different dif-ferent lessons each week. One week they will have a study of the literary works. Another week they will have lessons on family living and home -making skills. Another An-other week they will have a lesson on spiritual development. develop-ment. Another week they have a work meeting at which they actually work at projects pro-jects to learn work skills or hobbies, which can be done In the home, such as quilt making, macrame, etc. They have a visiting teacher teach-er program at which they visit the homes in the area ' to leave a spiritual message, mes-sage, and see if there is any assistance that is needed in the homes. They assist fam -ilies at times of sickness or grief to help in the home or furnish food for family meals. Frequently they take care of the flowers at funerals. funer-als. Their complete ambition and aim is to be of help wherever there is a need, and to further the growth and development of the family. This is a flagrant libelous statement against the Relief Society organization. Now you may have some information infor-mation concerning another group of women involved in this type of recreation, but I can assure you, that you are completely in the wrong as concerns the Relief Society So-ciety organization. I believe you owe the Relief Re-lief Society a retraction and apology for referring to their organization in the same article as your attempt to explain the coverup of the news item concerning the raid by the enforcement division di-vision of the State Liquor Control Commission, and referring to them being involved in-volved in Bingo playing. As far as your opinion as to the merits of sipping the juice and penny anti gambling, which it is not; has no bearing or relevance on the fact that the state of Utah has not legalized gam -bling or serving liquor over the bar by the drink. The beer joints in this communf-" ty and every other community commu-nity in the state has a license to sell beer. Not liquor by the drink or gambling in public beer joints or public race tracks, or any other public place. I am happy to see that any law enforcement division on the local, state, or government govern-ment level is doing the job that they are being paid to do. I would encourage them in every manner, rather than to run them down and try to discredit them, or hamper them in any way. I also feel that the city council has an obligation to live up to the oath they swore to uphold when they took office, of-fice, to follow up and see that these things are not encouraged, en-couraged, or allowed to continue. con-tinue. These beer joints operate op-erate on a city license which has been approved by the city council and is under their control and jurisdiction at all times. s Bob Wright EDITOR'S NOTE: First, we must say there was no attempt at-tempt at a cover-up. With the exception of the gam -bling which was reported, there are no other facts in the case until such time as the charges filed on serving liquor are proven in court, which could take several months or years. At that time, if we hear about it, the results of the" case will be reported. There was no attempt to slander the Relief Society, nor did we indicate that Bingo Bin-go was played at Relief Society. So-ciety. This interpretation is purely yours, for not reading read-ing what was actually said. What we did try to do was to point out that gambling wherever it is done, is il- breaking the law, both gam -bling and serving liquor over the bar. We disagree. We've passed through and been in the local establishments several sev-eral times in the past six years and have yet to ever iee money involved in card games, or any evidence of liquor being sold by the drink. And while there have been several raids on the establishments estab-lishments during that time, to my knowledge there is not a single conviction. Had the gentlemen not plead guilty for reasons of convenience rather than to stand trial it's doubtful there was sufficient evidence to convict them. It should also be noted that neither the owner or any of his em -ployees were involved in the game, if the rumors you hear on the street are to be believed. be-lieved. The problem with Utah's undercover agents is that they go where the complaints are. Often these complaints are based on allegations and rumor, rather than fact. We'd have to judge that the local establishments are pretty clean if, as street rumor has it, that these undercover agents had frequented fre-quented the local pubs on a regular basis for over a month before they were able to find anything wrong. We would hardly expect this amount of time to be devoted de-voted to little Milford unless complaints were filed. These complaints most likely come from a woman scorned or a reformed alcoholic. Either of which are more interested in making trouble than enforcement en-forcement of the law. legal, and that the laws of Utah are discriminatory when they turn their back on one form of gambling and crack down on another form of gambling. We are sorry that we used the term 'Relief Society' not because we did anything wrong, but because some, like you, misinterpreted what was said. We feel very strongly, however, had we used the term 'Ladies Aid Society', no one would have questioned. Still the 'ladies aid society' serves the same capacity for other denominations denomi-nations as do the fine ladies in the 'Relief Society'. On our side, we had only four complaints, including yours, while receiving over seventy -five compliments on the column, many coming from church members and yes, even some who attend "relief society". To reinforce our stand, we believe that if the anti-gambling anti-gambling laws are to be enforced en-forced they must be enforced 100,. That means everything every-thing from ballgame pools to flipping for cokes, from pari-mutual to cards. The crackdown should not be selective but should be enforced in Salt Lake City the same as Beaver County. In Rich County the same as Kane and in St. George the same as Bountiful. We realize there are some in Utah who would like to see this done. However, you wouldn't like th e results! Shut off these outlets where people can enjoy themselves and overnight, practically, the laws will be changed. They will be changed to allow at least some types of gambling: Bingo, charity raffles, raf-fles, punch boards, baseball pools and other innocuous devices that most often are used to raise money for charities. Close it off too tight and the voters yes, even in Utah will open it as wide open as Nevada -or worse. I don't for a minute believe be-lieve that the bars operate only to tear down and destroy the family and community. They are small businessmen, business-men, like the newspaper, and others who work damned hard to make a living. Mostly they police their businesses in order to protect pro-tect their right to continue to do business. Bars have more restrictions and requirements re-quirements in this manner than any other enterprise serving the public. Your letter indicates that the bars make a practice of |