Cass Lake OKs Sunday liquor

I first started at the Bemidji (Minn.) Pioneer as an intern in the summer of 1996. That would begin six years as a news reporter, sports reporter and copy editor for a small, six-day-per-week daily newspaper in northern Minnesota. I wrote a large range of stories from multiple beats, to features to sports, my favorite being the coverage of the Red Lake Reservation High School basketball team named the Warriors. Here is a collection of my stories from my time at the Pioneer.

Sept. 9, 1999

By Devlyn Brooks

The third time was the charm in Cass Lake.

After narrowly defeating the issue twice in two years, Cass Lake voters overwhelmingly approved Tuesday that the city be allowed to issue licenses for selling intoxicating liquor on Sunday.

The vote total was unavailable until Wednesday.

By a 67-21 margin, the voters finally approved the issue, which recently was brought to the forefront of discussion again by Canal House Restaurant and Stony Point Resort owner Karen Bowley.

Bowley lost a Sunday liquor license that had been issued by Pike Bay Township because her business was annexed by the city of Cass Lake for sewer services.

Losing her license put her at a disadvantage in Cass Lake, Bowley said, but also in the region. Because one bar in town, and many bars in the region, were allowed to sell liquor on Sundays, she was losing business.

Of the four bars in Cass Lake, prior to Tuesday's vote, only the Big Tap could serve liquor on Sundays because it is co-owned by a member of the Leech Lake Band of Ojibwe. That qualified the bar for a liquor license under the jurisdiction of the tribe.

Bowley reasoned that with on bar in town able to serve liquor, it was unfair for her restaurant, the Cass Lake American Legion and North Country Junction -- all falling under Cass Lake's jurisdiction.

Bowley convinced the city council to hold its third referendum on the issue in three years. One had been defeated in December by nine votes, and another in 1997 by just one vote.

"I'm very excited," Bowley said Wednesday. "We knew that if we got some of the people that wanted it to show up (at the polls), we could probably get it passed."

The bar owner said being she had one chance to make the referendum work, while the other two bars' chances had failed, she had to get a publicity campaign started.

By calling friends, neighbors and patrons, Bowley said she figures she helped tip the scales so decisively in favor of Sunday liquor.

But the alternative was unthinkable.

If the referendum hadn't passed, Bowley and the other two bars would have had to wait until the city annexed another establishment interested in selling liquor on Sundays before trying another referendum.

"If we would have lost, we might have had to wait a couple of years before another bar was annexed," Bowley said.

The Canal House Restaurant lost their Sunday liquor license on July 17, Bowley said, and it has lost "at least a couple of hundred dollars every Sunday since.