Experts Differ on Effect to Pine Ridge Reservation of Closing Whiteclay NE Beer Stores
The unincorporated village of Whiteclay, Nebraska is right on the state line with South Dakota, in Sheridan County. It had until recently four beer stores that sold insane amounts of beer to Native Americans on the legally-dry Pine Ridge Reservation across the state line.
Activists from the reservation and Nebraska have long-sought to close those beer stores, citing chronic problems created by all that beer on the poverty-stricken reservation. Locally, this fight has been dubbed “The Battle for Whiteclay.”
The state liquor control commission revoked the licenses of the beer stores over the objections of the owners and Sheridan County (they provided the majority of the tax revenue for the county).
More at the Scottsbluff, Nebr. Star-Herald.
Beer purchases have declined in the vicinity of Whiteclay, Nebraska, in the wake of the April closings of the village’s four beer stores, but two officials gave differing views on what that means.
State Sen. Tom Brewer of Gordon, whose district includes Whiteclay, said Thursday that the drop in wholesale beer purchases in May and June reflect what he’s been hearing: that some people on the officially dry Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, which was served by Whiteclay, are drinking less.
“A lot of it is because they can’t get to it,” said Brewer, who is a member of the Oglala Sioux Tribe.
Whiteclay, which sits just across the South Dakota-Nebraska border from the reservation, is an unincorporated village of nine residents. Its stores sold the equivalent of 3.5 million cans of a beer a year — almost all to residents of the reservation.
Nebraska was criticized for contributing to the alcohol-related woes on the reservation, which include epic rates of alcoholism and fetal alcohol syndrome, by allowing the Whiteclay stores to remain open.
The stores closed April 30. The state supreme court will hear arguments next month on whether they should be allowed to reopen. The liquor control commission cited a lack of law enforcement and a lack of government in Whiteclay for its decision. The Sheridan County Sheriff cannot adequately patrol Whiteclay, which is famous for Native Americans sleeping drunk in its streets.