KETV Omaha: Tribe Demands $500M From Beer Makers

[KamaAina]

19. Apparently Nebraska is turning a blind eye to blatant violations of its own liquor laws

http://www.yvwiiusdinvnohii.net/News99/NAJ990128.htm

One day during the summer of 1997, Frank LaMere, a Winnebago, who is executive director of the Nebraska Inter-Tribal Development Corp., visited Whiteclay. He counted 32 intoxicated Indians on the streets of Whiteclay at 5:15 a.m., and 47 drunks on the streets in the afternoon, some of whom were fighting each other. Several other Indians were passed out at the intersection of Nebraska Highway 87 and the road that leads to the reservation. Others were urinating on the street.

Shortly after he visited Whiteclay, LaMere asked the Nebraska Liquor Control Commission to shut Whiteclay down.

"I don't know what constitutes infractions of liquor laws in Whiteclay, but my good sense tells me there is something terribly wrong ... ," LaMere told Toni Heinzl of the Omaha World-Herald. "What I saw ... in Whiteclay would not be acceptable in Omaha or Lincoln," LaMere continued. "If we walked down O Street in Lincoln and saw 47 students (of the University of Nebraska) passed out in the streets or engaged in violent situations, we would consider jerking the licenses of those liquor establishments," he told the Liquor Control Commission.

The four beer stores in Whiteclay sold 4 million bottles or cans of beer in 1996, taking in $3 million, a 46 percent increase since 1994. Why the enormous jump in Whiteclay's clientele? One reason may be the rising population of Pine Ridge, swollen by Native Americans returning to the reservation following cutbacks in welfare benefits in many states.

And that's from 1999!

Therein lies the answer, simply enforcing existing laws. What about DUI? These people have to get back to the rez somehow. I doubt very much that they have designated drivers. A sobriety checkpoint along Highway 87 between Whiteclay and the SD line ought to do the trick. And then, of course, you can hold whoever provided the alcohol just as responsible as the drunk driver.

And, of course, doing something about the root cause of the problem, the unimaginable poverty and despair on Pine Ridge, which apparently is being fueled byt the grwoing callousness of the rest of America.