BEER WITH A SOCIALIST: Prohibitionists see an opportunity amid COVID-19's onslaught.

But riots would violate social distancing, right?

Beer writer Andy Crouch, who is from Massachusetts:

"Liquor stores are filling growlers out of kegs in the back of a truck in customers' driveways. There are no liquor laws anymore. How we go back to "normal" after all of this is beyond me."

Here in Indiana, watching as dozens of alcoholic beverage laws vanish (temporarily) overnight has been like watching the Warsaw Pact crumble in 1989. The Indy Star explains, focusing on a key point.

Indiana, once a last bastion of blue laws, considers alcohol sales 'essential', by Chris Sikich (Indianapolis Star)

Political watchers say it's unlikely anyone had to make pleas to the governor, or at least plead very hard. Andy Downs, director of the Mike Downs Center for Indiana Politics, said there would be civil unrest if the government had tried to outlaw alcohol when everyone was stuck at home.

"He's doing something that both meets demand and doesn't create a new problem," Downs said.

He said (Eric) Holcomb's likely chain of thought was quite logical.

"Grocery stores are open and would have continued to sell alcohol," Downs said. "So that means liquor stores had to be an essential service too (to ensure an even playing field). And if we're trying to make sure that restaurants can survive, that means people who order food for carryout absolutely should be able to get their booze there rather than create more risk by travelling elsewhere."

According to a high-powered medical authority, it isn't so simple. Peter P. Bach says that continuing to allow the sale of alcoholic beverages during the pandemic, when people are compelled to stay at home with their loved ones, only enhances domestic violence.

Consequently, a new reason for prohibitionism.

Ban alcohol sales during the pandemic, by Peter B. Bach (Boston Globe)

Domestic violence appears to be rising and states need to shut down liquor stores until home isolation is no longer needed.

Millions are beaten and injured annually in the United States by drunken domestic partners and parents, and that is when times are good. With the economy tanking and families locked together because of stay-at-home orders to combat the spread of the coronavirus pandemic, domestic violence rates appear to be soaring. This requires an urgent response: States should immediately order the closures of liquor stores. They can reopen when home isolation is no longer needed.

And yet this: "Most adults drink rarely or not at all. Just 10 percent of adults account for 75 percent of all alcohol sold, consuming 10 or more drinks per day."

No question that confinement of families, sudden demands to oversee home schooling, precipitous job loss, and worry over an invisible viral predator are the ingredients of a toxic domestic brew. But alcohol is what turns it into a second invisible public health crisis.

Most adults drink rarely or not at all. Just 10 percent of adults account for 75 percent of all alcohol sold, consuming 10 or more drinks per day. That kind of excessive use impairs judgment, engenders anger agitation and dysphoria, and can lead to violent behavior.

Reducing access to alcohol during the crisis will reduce the frequency of home violence. Finland’s liquor store employee strike in the 1970s as well as Sweden’s curtailment of liquor store sales on certain days in the 1980s, both had that effect. South Dakota imposed twice daily sobriety breathalyzer checks for individuals with multiple arrests for drunk driving last decade. That worked too. Not only did drunk driving rates fall, but so did calls for domestic violence — both by about 10 percent.

These data could support curtailing liquor sales at any time, and reducing domestic violence was one of the motivations for the temperance movement a century ago. But our response to the coronavirus pandemic itself is what makes this move appropriate now and for the duration of home isolation, as the isolation frustrates an array of safeguards we have in place to identify domestic abuse in the first place.

The reasoning leads to a predictable place: "These data could support curtailing liquor sales at any time, and reducing domestic violence was one of the motivations for the temperance movement a century ago."

And, we recall how the temperance movement a century ago played out, eh?

(Colonial Manor edition): GREEN MOUSE presents NAWBANY WEEK IN REVIEW for 28 February 2020.

Good morning, and HAPPY GRAVITY HEAD.

There's really only one important New Agony story from the past week. Rumors from previous weeks were confirmed, and it was revealed that the Colonial Manor shopping center on Charlestown Road was sold to new owners, and also that a plan had been minted by these new owners for its revival ... without any involvement whatever from City Hall.

Hmm, how could it be? Doesn't the mayor write all our business plans?

Of course, this didn't stop Gahan's goons from claiming credit, or the Redevelopment Star Chamber from tithing a cool million for infrastructure improvements. They're nakedly shameless, and largely unable to tell truth unvarnished by sheer spin.

But in reality, as opposed the Gahan dreamworld, this is a far better outcome than the one proffered as an election year gambit by the mayor-for-life and his sycophants in 2019. Let's let councilman Al Knable explain. His take is more diplomatic than it needs to be, but otherwise lands right on the money.

Al Knable NA City Council at Large

February 25

I’m happy to see a truly private-public partnership afoot to move this important area of New Albany forward.

I applaud the efforts of the citizens in the surrounding neighborhood, the Economic Redevelopment team-including the Mayor- and the Hoagland Group for bringing us to this auspicious point.

The city’s pledge of $1,000,000 for infrastructure improvement is wholly appropriate and has my full support.

The arrangement announced today is clearly superior to the 2019 proposal, rejected by a majority of the City Council, which would have required a purchase price of approximately $2,600,000 (significantly above assessed value) in taxpayer money and cast our city’s government in the awkward role of commercial property manager.

A savings of $1,600,000 and major private investment in our community validates the Council’s 2019 decision and the patience of all involved.

I join everyone in welcoming today’s encouraging news and the promise of better days ahead for Colonial Manor.

City Hall's spellbindingly self-serving propaganda can be found here: City Partners with Investor to Revitalize Charlestown Road Corridor.

John Boyle's coverage at the News&Bune features testimony from 5th district councilman Josh Turner.

Colonial Manor to receive significant facelift with multimillion-dollar investment

NEW ALBANY — A point of emphasis for New Albany City Council member Josh Turner has been his push to “revive District 5.”

It’s his hope that the district he serves can soon witness a transformation, at which point that motto will become “come thrive in District 5” ...

... Turner said he’s happy to see this type of project come to the area, noting the grassroots effort from residents it took to get this outcome. Some early plans from the city’s previous attempts to purchase the property included residential developments, which Turner did not see as a good fit.

“If the current administration had its way there would have been housing here, and I’m really glad a private investor stepped up and is bringing some much needed amenities and services to the area,” he said. “This is a big win for the district.”

Last April the city council rejected the redevelopment commission’s plan to purchase the property for $2.6 million.

Though the city is not the main driver of the project, it is still partnering with the developer in the form of a $1 million investment.

In other developments, it appears that Team Gahan's appalling public housing policies have resulted in taxpayers absorbing a big bill for the mayor's avarice.

GREEN MOUSE SAYS: Has Bob Lane settled his lawsuit against NAHA for wrongful termination?

An analysis of the local chain newspaper's "opinion" page reveals something that should surprise no living human.

ON THE AVENUES: There is a complete absence of diversity among regular News and Tribune columnists.

Prohibitionism must be guarded against.

BEER WITH A SOCIALIST: Paternalism, classism and prohibitionism in Family Dollar's neighborhood.

And, with Harvey Weinstein down for the count ...

New Albany too? How will #MeToo play out here at the grassroots?

In closing, a reminder: Why wait for Lent to give up organized religion?

From 2015, "Fairytale of New Albania" ... including my favorite Christmas story.

I fixed it.

From December 24, 2015. Lightly edited and updated.

---

ON THE AVENUES: Fairytale of New Albania (2015 mashup).

I had intended to take the day off from the rigors of column composition, but with such a beautiful spring day outside in the aftermath of flash floods and tornadoes on December 23 -- Festivus, no less -- why not huddle indoors a bit longer on Christmas Eve, and plagiarize a previous effort?

After all, there is a legitimately important news item to report.

First, there is you. As a regular reader, you already know that I publish my ON THE AVENUES column on Thursday, a slot inherited from the pre-merger Tribune.

However, you may not be aware of your curious non-existence as a regular reader. Upon closer examination, it seems the page views and hit counts recorded here are entirely figments of my imagination, and the curiously timed denunciations and rebuttals emanating from purportedly non-reading public officials and functionaries merely an Orwellian coincidence.

There is no dissent in the Hermetic Dixiecratic Disney Republic(an) of New Albany, where the referendum of support for Mayor Jeff Gahan Presents the Doggie Doo Doo Fun Park and Canine Water Slide passed muster with 98.6% tally in favor, but disclaimers aside, I am informed that tomorrow is a religious holiday of some vague sort – a forever confusing proposition for an atheist like me – so I’ll try and keep it short.

Let’s begin with Great and Wonderful Tidings.

In 2014, I wrote these words:

"In spite of Indiana’s flagrantly fascistic proclivities, substantial progress has been made in freeing innocent tipplers from the oppressive yoke of the preacher man’s hellfire and damnation, and yet we retain at least one world-class example of prohibitionist backwash.

"It remains illegal to sell any alcoholic beverages on Christmas Day, a ban that violates church-state separation so openly and brazenly that I’m surprised the ACLU hasn’t parachuted into Indianapolis to help save us from ourselves."

See what I did there? That's right: The law finally changed in 2015.

Just a bit related to the topic at hand.

It's about time, isn't it? Maybe the Freedom from Religion Foundation intervened. After all, the prohibition of alcohol sales on Christmas Day was a blatant imposition of selective religious blue law on what should be secular tippling.

Indiana may be a basket case, but at least this one's finally right.

Hoosiers can buy alcohol on Christmas for the first time since Prohibition (Fox59)

The Indiana Alcohol and Tobacco Commission (ATC) announced today you can buy alcohol on Christmas.

Although many businesses are closed on Christmas, restaurants, bars, liquor stores and grocery stores that are open will be allowed to sell alcohol to you.

I'm told that Kansai Japanese Steakhouse in Clarksville will be open on Christmas Day, is cognizant of the change (many probably aren't), and will be serving adult beverages. Surely Horseshoe Casino will be, as well. Anyone else? Let me know, and I'll spread the word on social media.

(Let's assume that by now, two years down the road, everyone knows the drill.)

---

Often I’m asked: Roger, why not relent and embrace the Christmas spirit?

Would it be so hard to be human, just for once?

Contrary to popular perception, I do relent – after a fashion – and in spite of my best efforts, Vulcan-caliber logic continues to elude me. It is enjoyable to have a (relatively) work-free day, to spend time with loved ones, to plan parties, to eat and drink, and to do what anyone else does on a holiday.

But you see, as an unbeliever, I simply cannot indulge the Christian aspect of the day as it pertains to my sphere of individual conscience. For the same reason, I cannot support Christian displays in the sphere of public property. There is secular rule of law in America, and it reaffirms and protects an individual’s religious or non-religious conscience, whether it speaks to no gods or many.

Without this fine line, Mike Pence really will try to tell me which church to attend – or else.

At Christmas time, I respect the wants and needs of the genuinely devout, for whom the day is an expression of deeply held belief. More grudgingly, I acknowledge with deep groans the annual recitation by Ayn Rand fetishists of a belief in hyper-consumerism and pervasive materialism as a capitalistic manifestation of self, one worth glorifying in priestly fashion.

Maybe, but only up to a point. Rolling Stone's Matt Taibbi has contributed a thoughtful essay linking consumer Christmas to the stoking of irrational fears: This Christmas, Tune It All Out.

As for the rest of that shopaholic, mall-rushing craziness that can make this holiday so stressful, it turns out that it's optional. Switch off the wi-fi for a few days, turn off the TV, and it's amazing how much more reasonable the world instantly seems.

In the main, just know that you can count me out. Perhaps religion remains the preferred opiate because too much of the profit from consumerism remains in the hands of the 1 per cent.

---

In fact, I do have a favorite Christmas story.

My sole “corporate” day job lasted from 1988 to 1989, with a solitary Christmas in between. So it was that in 1988, management at our office in downtown Louisville declared a contest for best work station decoration.

With entirely uncharacteristic zeal, my friend and co-worker Jeff Price, who was well-connected within local radical leftist circles and later would meet me in East Germany to take part in the “summer of ‘89” volunteer student brigade, went to work toward his stated goal of winning first prize.

He soon appeared with scissors, glue, armloads of construction paper and dusty old copies of the English-language edition of the “New Albania” propaganda magazine, as borrowed from a socialist workers group somewhere in town.

Who even knew Louisville had such an organization?

Come the day of judgment, Jeff had transformed his pod into a veritable showplace of dully-colored agitprop, with a few bright red placards bearing impenetrable phrases in the Albanian language, photocopies of stiffly posed Communist leaders like Enver Hoxha and Ramiz Alia, and a genuinely demented final touch, which I’ll never forget.

Snaking along the tops of the dull gray office partitions stretched strands of coiled barbed wire fashioned from silver holiday tinsel.

Jeff’s display was dubbed Christmas in Albania – at the time, the world’s only officially atheist state – and while the judges could not quite bring themselves to give him the top prize, second place was decreed his, from sheer perverse creativity alone.

In short, exactly my kind of Christmas, but please, feel perfectly free to enjoy yours. Usually we spend Christmas Day eating egg rolls, Singapore rice noodles and Happy Family, but in 2015 comes another banner headline: Vietnam Kitchen is open on Christmas Day. Again in 2017, VK is open on Christmas Day from 11:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m., and we'll be there.

The very best Christmases are the ones that come and go with nary a trace, but this tiding truly is special. Clay pot catfish and beer?

In the absence of Slovak carp, it'll have to do.

(Addendum: My friend Peter Dedina evidently is visiting his hometown of Košice, Slovakia, and posted this photo of yuletide carp.)

THE BEER BEAT: It has been three years since BSB's original kitchen closed, so let's return to "Ice Cold WCTU (A Modest Proposal)."

Today marks three years since NABC closed the original kitchen at Bank Street Brewhouse.

May 13, 2014: It's time to reinvent, so changes are under way at NABC’s Bank Street Brewhouse.

Earlier in 2017, Evansville's Tin Man Brewing announced the end of its restaurant concept, followed shortly thereafter by the news that the brewery was available for purchase. I believe Tin Man is still brewing amid a hazy future, but at the time I was reminded in visceral fashion what it felt like when we emitted a similar explanation. To say that I commiserate with Tin Man is an understatement of vast dimensions.

Naturally, 2014 was a tumultuous year. I wanted to reinvent Bank Street Brewhouse as a destination taproom, and numerous auditions occurred, including a food truck experiment with Big Four Burgers, pop-ups with Dan Thomas (One night stand: Hot fried chicken pop-up coming to New Albany) and at year's end, a plan to install Taco Punk on weekends.

By then, we'd already had problems maintaining the "statutory compliance" menu of frozen hot dogs, powdered milk and instant coffee: Law-abiding by weenie was never this viral.

By January of 2015, I'd decided to run for mayor and take a leave of absence, which turned permanent shortly thereafter -- and no, they haven't paid me a dime yet. Perhaps it's time to make an attorney rich.

All in all, it's been a charmed life, and I have few regrets. One of them is that it wasn't possible to follow through on what undoubtedly was my greatest idea: Ice Cold WCTU, a museum and conceptual memorial to the victims of Prohibition, doubling as the unique shtick to draw customers to the brewery.

Of course, many elements of the idea might be free-standing, or function the same in a different setting. All that would be missing is the awesome irony of the beer garden as former site of the WCTU's headquarters.

Following is a reprint of a column detailing Ice Cold WCTU (July 24, 2014). I'll never give up on this idea. It's only a matter of time.

---

ON THE AVENUES: Ice Cold WCTU (A Modest Proposal).

A weekly web column by Roger A. Baylor.

Once upon a time in downtown New Albany, a house stood in the space between Bank Street Brewhouse and the Ricke & Associates agency to the north. If there is an extant photo somewhere, I haven’t seen it, although it is safe to assume an appearance somewhat like that of the Ricke house itself, or the Fox law office on the other side, probably positioned close by the street in traditional row house fashion.

Before the house was demolished around 1955, it had been used for a very long time by New Albany’s branch of the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union. In case you didn’t know, the WCTU’s mission was to create a “sober and pure world” through “abstinence, purity and evangelical Christianity.” City guides dating from 1954 all the way back to 1919 identify the house as the WCTU chapter’s headquarters.

The following was written in 1937.

In the year 1852 Mr. John Crawford built and sold to Mr. Silas Day the large brick house on the west side of Bank Street now owned by the W.C.T.U. This was an example of a New Albany home of the better class in the 1850s and 1860s.

We don’t know when the WCTU bought the house, although in 1882, New Albany’s chapter merited mention in the “Minutes of the Woman's Christian Temperance Union of the State of Indiana at the Annual Meeting.”

The New Albany WCTU’s zenith was in the early 1900s, during its ultimately successful campaign for statewide and later national Prohibition. Fortunately, Prohibition’s myriad and well-documented failures served to discredit America’s teetotalers far better than my puny words ever could. Today, the craft brewing revolution flourishes in New Albany on the very same spot where beer’s enemies once conspired.

That’s delicious, and it’s why we need a monument to victory over the prohibitionists.

---

The project I’m proposing is called Ice Cold WCTU, and it aims to provide a unique, fully functional entrance to Lloyd’s Landing, the NABC “beer garden” adjacent to Bank Street Brewhouse. Lloyd’s Landing is named for the late Lloyd Wimp, who I’m confident would have enthusiastically approved of this idea.

Ice Cold WCTU is designed to be multi-faceted. It addresses the history and architectural heritage of New Albany, provides a conceptual “memorial” suitable for becoming a genuine tourist attraction, addresses themes of art and sustainability, and will be the only thing like it, anywhere.

That’s because the WCTU helped bring about Prohibition, and Prohibition almost killed brewing in America – and so who better than a local brewer belonging to the new, flourishing “craft” generation to commemorate the killjoy villainy of the WCTU?

The memorial plaque might read:

“In a house once standing here, New Albany’s chapter of the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union advocated for Prohibition and abstinence from ‘Demon Alcohol.’ But Prohibition proved to be a disaster, and so it is vitally important that we remember the WCTU’s efforts favoring Prohibition, all the better for us to reject Prohibition, now and forever.”

Here’s how it might work.

At the entrance to Lloyd’s Landing, facing Bank Street, we’ll “trace” the front of the former WCTU house. This structure will take the form of pergolas (on the Lloyd’s Landing side, to eventually be linked to a shelter house or patio improvements) and an artistic façade or “false front” rising higher on the street side, constructed mostly of salvaged and recycled building materials. Because the front would mimic the roofline of the (an) old house, there’ll be at least the suggestion of a restored streetscape.

The facing will be representational, not an exact reproduction. It might be painted, or not. Vines or hops might grow on it, or not. Gaps could be complemented with shutters, window frames and other architectural mementoes, or not. It is to be artistic, not a duplicate. I envision an interpretive plaque, as worded above, as well as a life-sized, all-weather cutout bearing the photographic image of WCTU members – the Wild Women of the WCTU, next to whom visitors can pose for selfies.

But there’s even more.

---

Bank Street Brewhouse’s fully enclosed, former outdoor patio area already has been dubbed the WCTU Reading Room, and there is just enough unused wall space therein to redeploy as a museum, with exhibits explaining the WCTU, Prohibition, and their deleterious effects on civilized society.

The grand opening can be preceded by a community-wide art contest, in which local artists riff on a theme of fundamentalist zealotry. For the occasion, we might clear the former dining room of furniture and display the art there. Behind the art, through the window, lies the brewery, and if those machines kill fascists, surely they eradicate prohibitionists as well.

Ice Cold WCTU simultaneously pushes so many red hot buttons that I’m hard pressed to count them all.

It restores a streetscape, references New Albany’s history and recognizes the city’s architectural heritage.

It serves as a permanent art project and tourist attraction.

It provides a focal point to rebranding Bank Street Brewhouse, something we need in the absence of a kitchen, giving us a place to begin or end brewery tours.

Best of all, every aspect of it is factually verifiable. It is non-fiction. To return yet again to the words of Santayana: "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it." There needs to be a memorial and a museum to the WCTU and Prohibition, because they must not be forgotten.

Now all I have to do is figure out a way to finance Ice Cold WCTU. If ever there was a Kickstarter project capable of succeeding, this is it.

Anyone know a grant writer?

As for the recycled materials, paging Mr. Steve Resch …

Steve, if you’re reading …

Time to learn something: "Should America Have Entered World War I?"

On the 100th anniversary of America's entry into World War I, Donald Trump fired cruise missiles at Hafez al-Assad's son. Evidently there are Hama Rules, and there are Mar-a-Lago Rules, but since no one much bothers with history any longer, back to the legacy of the Great War.

It is the source of considerable chagrin in my interior world that an occurrence as cataclysmic as World War I is barely remembered. The topic fascinates me, and I've written about it often since the blog's inception. Here are the last ten or so major references:

An annual reminder: Forgotten fields in Flanders on Armistice (Veterans) Day.

"The nation must be taught to bear losses."

Roger’s Year in Music 2015 (Part 8): How did I die? A WWI lamentation.

Shells still explode in Belgium, one hundred years on.

"The biggest illusion, of course, was that victory would be quick and easy."

"A global guide to the first world war - interactive documentary."

More World War I links. Why? Because they interest me.

"Sophie, Sophie, don't die! Stay alive for the children."

Gavrilo Princip and the June 28 day.

WWI readings: From what was torn asunder to what was not rebuilt.

See this NAC search thread for more

I'll continue to make the argument that future historians will see World War I beginning with the first Balkan War in 1912, and in terms of cause and effect continued through the post-war settlement, depression and rise of fascist dictatorships, into World War II, then the Cold War, to the Yugoslav civil war in the 1990s. It will be renamed the 80 Year War, or some such.

An equally compelling subplot for Americans involves the way our entry into the war hastened the arrival of Prohibition. It's a case made by Lisa McGirr in her book The War on Alcohol: Prohibition and the Rise of the American State; mandated sobriety by reason of Protestant fundamentalism and anti-immigrant sentiment suddenly merged with sobriety as a patriotic imperative in wartime, and BOOM ... the foundations of greater government intrusion were quickly established and expanded in decades to come.

Michael Kazin covers numerous other key points in his op-ed piece. They're worth knowing.

Should America Have Entered World War I?, by Michael Kazin (New York Times)

One hundred years ago today, Congress voted to enter what was then the largest and bloodiest war in history. Four days earlier, President Woodrow Wilson had sought to unite a sharply divided populace with a stirring claim that the nation “is privileged to spend her blood and her might for the principles that gave her birth and happiness and the peace which she has treasured.” The war lasted only another year and a half, but in that time, an astounding 117,000 American soldiers were killed and 202,000 wounded.

Still, most Americans know little about why the United States fought in World War I, or why it mattered. The “Great War” that tore apart Europe and the Middle East and took the lives of over 17 million people worldwide lacks the high drama and moral gravity of the Civil War and World War II, in which the very survival of the nation seemed at stake.

World War I is less easy to explain. America intervened nearly three years after it began, and the “doughboys,” as our troops were called, engaged in serious combat for only a few months. More Americans in uniform died away from the battlefield — thousands from the Spanish flu — than with weapons in hand. After victory was achieved, Wilson’s audacious hope of making a peace that would advance democracy and national self-determination blew up in his face when the Senate refused to ratify the treaty he had signed at the Palace of Versailles.

But attention should be paid. America’s decision to join the Allies was a turning point in world history. It altered the fortunes of the war and the course of the 20th century — and not necessarily for the better. Its entry most likely foreclosed the possibility of a negotiated peace among belligerent powers that were exhausted from years mired in trench warfare ...

SHANE'S EXCELLENT NEW WORDS: For H. L. Mencken, tippling iconoclasts safeguarded us against pecksniffian teetotalers.

The whole life of the inferior man, including especially his so-called thinking, is purely a biochemical process, and exactly comparable to what goes on in a barrel of cider.
-- H. L. Mencken

It is said that the fabled American journalist, writer and social commentator H. L. Mencken (1880-1956) celebrated the repeal of Prohibition by drinking a glass of cold water.

“My first in 13 years,” he explained.

Who was this wordsmith known as “The Sage of Baltimore”? The Encyclopedia Brittanica provides the necessary background.

H.L. Mencken, in full Henry Louis Mencken … controversialist, humorous journalist, and pungent critic of American life who powerfully influenced U.S. fiction through the 1920s … Mencken was probably the most influential American literary critic in the 1920s, and he often used his criticism as a point of departure to jab at various American social and cultural weaknesses.

Controversialist – now there’s a wonderful word, indeed.

A person who disputes; who is good at or enjoys controversy.

Mencken’s written output of curmudgeonly feistiness verifies his mastery of the polemical arts, and as such, you can count him among my most prominent role models.

In addition, as a militant German-American enduring a “dry” era brought about by the same religious zealots, health fascists, cultural terrorists and bubble-headed activists now inhabiting local health departments nationwide, Mencken was not averse to the merits of the tall, cool one.

Mencken was one of the earliest advocates of unrestricted bile as a means of equal opportunity, and understood that common sense is remarkably uncommon.

Common sense really involves making full use of all the demonstrable evidence and of nothing but the demonstrable evidence.

In short, Mencken was an iconoclast of the highest order, and so the word itself is worth revisiting.

Iconoclast

1. A person who attacks cherished beliefs, traditional institutions, etc., as being based on error or superstition.

2. A breaker or destroyer of images, especially those set up for religious veneration.

To hell with Walt Disney. My heroes have always been iconoclasts. From Socrates through Tom Paine, and Mencken through Hunter S. Thompson, there’s nothing as thrilling to me as an iconoclast taking a headlong swipe at cherished, unexamined assumptions. Better yet, given my own career as a tippler ...

tippler (noun)

A person who is habitually drunk: drunk, drunkard, inebriate, sot.
Slang: boozehound, boozer, lush, rummy, soak, souse, sponge, stiff.

 ... the most wonderful aspect of iconoclasm is that rampant personal dissipation does not pre-empt the message.

It actually may enhance it.

My current personal reading selection is The War on Alcohol: Prohibition and the Rise of the American State, by Lisa McGirr. This sad history documents what can go wrong when abstinence from alcoholic beverages is legislated by government, and of course Mencken well understood the implications of this habit of mind.

Teetotalism does not make for human happiness; it makes for the dull, idiotic happiness of the barnyard. The men who do things in the world, the men worthy of admiration and imitation, are men constitutionally incapable of any such pecksniffian stupidity. Their ideal is not a safe life, but a full life; they do not try to follow the canary bird in a cage, but the eagle in the air. And in particular they do not flee from shadows and bugaboos. The alcohol myth is such a bugaboo. The sort of man it scares is the sort of man whose chief mark is that he is scared all the time.

The richness of Mencken’s writing reached well beyond newspapers, magazine essays and polemics to history and etymology.

In particular, he was a scholar of the American tongue, documenting the “old” English language’s transformation into something new, vital and distinctly ours. Here is a brief excerpt from Mencken’s seminal The American Language: An Inquiry into the Development of English in the United States (Fourth Edition, 1937):

"An English saloon-keeper is officially a licensed victualler. His saloon is a public house, or, colloquially, a pub. He does not sell beer by the bucket, can, growler, shell, seidel, stein or schooner, but by the pint, half-pint or glass. He and his brethren, taken together, are the licensed trade, or simply the trade. He may divide his establishment into a public-bar, a saloon-bar and a private-bar, the last being the toniest, or he may call his back room a parlour, snug or tap-room. If he has a few upholstered benches in his place he may call it a lounge. He employs no bartenders. Barmaids do the work, with maybe a barman, potman or cellarman to help.

"Beer, in most parts of Great Britain, means only the thinnest and cheapest form of malt liquor; better stuff is commonly called bitter. When an Englishman speaks of booze he means only ale or beer; for our hard liquor (a term he never uses) he prefers spirits. He uses boozer to indicate a drinking-place as well as a drinker. What we call hard cider is rough cider to him. He never uses rum in the generic sense that is has acquired in the United States, and knows nothing of rum-hounds, rum-dumbs, rum-dealers, the rum-trade, and the rum-evil, or of the Demon Rum.

"The American bung-starter is a beer-mallet in England, and, as in this country, it is frequently used for assault and homicide."

Closing note: Today's thoughts have been adapted from previous columns.

ON THE AVENUES: Fairytale of New Albania (2015 mashup).

ON THE AVENUES: Fairytale of New Albania (2015 mashup).

A weekly column by Roger A. Baylor.

I had intended to take the day off from the rigors of column composition, but with such a beautiful spring day outside in the aftermath of flash floods and tornadoes on December 23 -- Festivus, no less -- why not huddle indoors a bit longer on Christmas Eve, and plagiarize a previous effort?

After all, there is a legitimately important news item to report.

First, there is you. As a regular reader, you already know that I publish my ON THE AVENUES column on Thursday, a slot inherited from the pre-merger Tribune.

However, you may not be aware of your curious non-existence as a regular reader. Upon closer examination, it seems the page views and hit counts recorded here are entirely figments of my imagination, and the curiously timed denunciations and rebuttals emanating from purportedly non-reading public officials and functionaries merely an Orwellian coincidence.

There is no dissent in the Hermetic Dixiecratic Disney Republic(an) of New Albany, where the referendum of support for Mayor Jeff Gahan Presents the Doggie Doo Doo Fun Park and Canine Water Slide passed muster with 98.6% tally in favor, but disclaimers aside, I am informed that tomorrow is a religious holiday of some vague sort – a forever confusing proposition for an atheist like me – so I’ll try and keep it short.

Let’s begin with Great and Wonderful Tidings.

In 2014, I wrote these words:

"In spite of Indiana’s flagrantly fascistic proclivities, substantial progress has been made in freeing innocent tipplers from the oppressive yoke of the preacher man’s hellfire and damnation, and yet we retain at least one world-class example of prohibitionist backwash.

"It remains illegal to sell any alcoholic beverages on Christmas Day, a ban that violates church-state separation so openly and brazenly that I’m surprised the ACLU hasn’t parachuted into Indianapolis to help save us from ourselves."

See what I did there? That's right: The law finally changed in 2015.

Just a bit related to the topic at hand.

It's about time, isn't it? Maybe the Freedom from Religion Foundation intervened. After all, the prohibition of alcohol sales on Christmas Day was a blatant imposition of selective religious blue law on what should be secular tippling.

Indiana may be a basket case, but at least this one's finally right.

Hoosiers can buy alcohol on Christmas for the first time since Prohibition (Fox59)

The Indiana Alcohol and Tobacco Commission (ATC) announced today you can buy alcohol on Christmas.

Although many businesses are closed on Christmas, restaurants, bars, liquor stores and grocery stores that are open will be allowed to sell alcohol to you.

I'm told that Kansai Japanese Steakhouse in Clarksville will be open tomorrow, is cognizant of the change (many probably aren't), and will be serving adult beverages. Surely Horseshoe Casino will be, as well. Anyone else? Let me know, and I'll spread the word on social media.

---

Often I’m asked: Roger, why not relent and embrace the Christmas spirit?

Would it be so hard to be human, just for once?

Contrary to popular perception, I do relent – after a fashion – and in spite of my best efforts, Vulcan-caliber logic continues to elude me. It is enjoyable to have a (relatively) work-free day, to spend time with loved ones, to plan parties, to eat and drink, and to do what anyone else does on a holiday.

But you see, as an unbeliever, I simply cannot indulge the Christian aspect of the day as it pertains to my sphere of individual conscience. For the same reason, I cannot support Christian displays in the sphere of public property. There is secular rule of law in America, and it reaffirms and protects an individual’s religious or non-religious conscience, whether it speaks to no gods or many.

Without this fine line, Mike Pence really will try to tell me which church to attend – or else.

At Christmas time, I respect the wants and needs of the genuinely devout, for whom the day is an expression of deeply held belief. More grudgingly, I acknowledge with deep groans the annual recitation by Ayn Rand fetishists of a belief in hyper-consumerism and pervasive materialism as a capitalistic manifestation of self, one worth glorifying in priestly fashion.

Maybe, but only up to a point. Rolling Stone's Matt Taibbi has contributed a thoughtful essay linking consumer Christmas to the stoking of irrational fears: This Christmas, Tune It All Out.

In the main, just know that you can count me out. Perhaps religion remains the preferred opiate because too much of the profit from consumerism remains in the hands of the 1 per cent.

---

In fact, I do have a favorite Christmas story.

My sole “corporate” day job lasted from 1988 to 1989, with a solitary Christmas in between. So it was that in 1988, management at our office in downtown Louisville declared a contest for best work station decoration.

With entirely uncharacteristic zeal, my friend and co-worker Jeff Price, who was well-connected within local radical leftist circles and later would meet me in East Germany to take part in the “summer of ‘89” volunteer student brigade, went to work toward his stated goal of winning first prize.

He soon appeared with scissors, glue, armloads of construction paper and dusty old copies of the English-language edition of the “New Albania” propaganda magazine, as borrowed from a socialist workers group somewhere in town.

Who even knew Louisville had such an organization?

Come the day of judgment, Jeff had transformed his pod into a veritable showplace of dully-colored agitprop, with a few bright red placards bearing impenetrable phrases in the Albanian language, photocopies of stiffly posed Communist leaders like Enver Hoxha and Ramiz Alia, and a genuinely demented final touch, which I’ll never forget.

Snaking along the tops of the dull gray office partitions stretched strands of coiled barbed wire fashioned from silver holiday tinsel.

Jeff’s display was dubbed Christmas in Albania – at the time, the world’s only officially atheist state – and while the judges could not quite bring themselves to give him the top prize, second place was decreed his, from sheer perverse creativity alone.

In short, exactly my kind of Christmas, but please, feel perfectly free to enjoy yours. Usually we spend Christmas Day eating egg rolls, Singapore rice noodles and Happy Family, but in 2015 comes another banner headline: Vietnam Kitchen is open on Christmas Day.

The very best Christmases are the ones that come and go with nary a trace, but this ... this is special. Clay pot catfish and beer? In the absence of Slovak carp, it'll have to do.

---

Recent columns:

December 17: ON THE AVENUES: Gin and tacos, and a maybe a doughnut, but only where feasible.

December 10: ON THE AVENUES: Truth, lies, music, and a trick of the Christmas tale (2015).

December 3: ON THE AVENUES: Who (or what) is New Albany's "Person of the Year" for 2015?

November 26: ON THE AVENUES: Faux thanks and reveries (The 2015 Remix).

November 19: ON THE AVENUES: Beer, farthings and that little-known third category.

November 12: ON THE AVENUES: The mayor’s race was about suburban-think versus urban-think. The wrong-think won.

ON THE AVENUES: Fairytale of New Albania.

ON THE AVENUES: Fairytale of New Albania.

A weekly web column by Roger A. Baylor.

Regular readers, you already know that I publish my ON THE AVENUES column on Thursday, a slot inherited from the pre-merger Tribune.

However, you may not be aware of your curious non-existence as regular readers. On closer examination, it seems the page views and hit counts recorded here are entirely figments of my imagination, and the curiously timed denunciations and rebuttals emanating from purportedly non-reading public officials and functionaries are mere coincidence.

There is no dissent in the Hermetic Dixiecratic Disney Republic(an) of New Albany, where the referendum of support for the Main Street Disprovement Project passed with 98.6% tally in favor, but disclaimers aside, I am informed that today is a religious holiday of some vague sort – a forever confusing proposition for an atheist like me – so I’ll try and keep it short.

Let’s begin with a ritual denunciation, perhaps more appropriate for the Airing of Grievances than National Chinese Carry-Out Day.

In spite of Indiana’s flagrantly fascistic proclivities, substantial progress has been made in freeing innocent tipplers from the oppressive yoke of the preacher man’s hellfire and damnation, and yet we retain at least one world-class example of prohibitionist backwash.

It remains illegal to sell any alcoholic beverages on Christmas Day, a ban that violates church-state separation so openly and brazenly that I’m surprised the ACLU hasn’t parachuted into Indianapolis to help save us from ourselves.

Maybe I’ll ring them when I finish writing this column.

---

Often I’m asked: Roger, why not relent and embrace the Christmas spirit?

Would it be so hard to be human, just for once?

Contrary to popular perception, I do relent – after a fashion – and in spite of my best efforts, Vulcan-caliber logic continues to elude me. It is enjoyable to have a (relatively) work-free day, to spend time with loved ones, to plan parties, to eat and drink, and to do what anyone else does on a holiday.

But you see, as an unbeliever, I simply cannot indulge the Christian aspect of the day as it pertains to my sphere of individual conscience. For the same reason, I cannot support Christian displays in the sphere of public property. There is secular rule of law in America, and it reaffirms and protects an individual’s religious or non-religious conscience, whether it speaks to no gods or many.

Without this fine line, Mike Pence really will try to tell me which church to attend – or else.

At Christmas time, I respect the wants and needs of the genuinely devout, for whom the day is an expression of deeply held belief. More grudgingly, I acknowledge with deep groans the annual recitation by Ayn Rand fetishists of a belief in hyper-consumerism and pervasive materialism as a capitalistic manifestation of self, one worth glorifying in priestly fashion.

That’s fine.

Just know that you can count me out. Perhaps religion remains the preferred opiate because too much of the other addiction is in the hands of the 1 per cent.

---

In fact, I do have a favorite Christmas story, one I haven’t told in a while.

My sole “corporate” day job lasted from 1988 to 1989, with a solitary Christmas in between. So it was that in 1988, management at our office in downtown Louisville declared a contest for best work station decoration.

With an entirely uncharacteristic zeal, my friend and co-worker Jeff Price, who was well-connected within local radical leftist circles and later would meet me in East Germany to take part in the “summer of ‘89” volunteer student brigade, went to work toward his stated goal of winning first prize.

He soon appeared with scissors, glue, armloads of construction paper and dusty old copies of the English-language edition of the “New Albania” propaganda magazine, as borrowed from a socialist workers group somewhere in town.

Who even knew we had such an organization?

Come the day of judgment, Jeff had transformed his pod into a veritable showplace of dully-colored agitprop, with a few bright red placards bearing impenetrable phrases in the Albanian language, photocopies of stiffly posed Communist leaders like Enver Hoxha and Ramiz Alia, and a genuinely demented final touch, which I’ll never forget.

Snaking along the tops of the dull gray office partitions stretched strands of coiled barbed wire fashioned from silver holiday tinsel.

Jeff’s display was dubbed Christmas in Albania – at the time, the world’s only officially atheist state – and while the judges could not quite bring themselves to give him the top prize, second place was decreed his from sheer creativity alone.

In short, exactly my kind of Christmas, but please, feel perfectly free to enjoy yours. I’ll be eating egg rolls, Singapore rice noodles and Happy Family.

ON THE AVENUES: Ice Cold WCTU (A Modest Proposal).

ON THE AVENUES: Ice Cold WCTU (A Modest Proposal).

A weekly web column by Roger A. Baylor.

Once upon a time in downtown New Albany, a house stood in the space between Bank Street Brewhouse and the Ricke & Associates agency to the north. If there is an extant photo somewhere, I haven’t seen it, although it is safe to assume an appearance somewhat like that of the Ricke house itself, or the Fox law office on the other side, probably positioned close by the street in traditional row house fashion.

Before the house was demolished around 1955, it had been used for a very long time by New Albany’s branch of the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union. In case you didn’t know, the WCTU’s mission was to create a “sober and pure world” through “abstinence, purity and evangelical Christianity.” City guides dating from 1954 all the way back to 1919 identify the house as the WCTU chapter’s headquarters.

The following was written in 1937.

In the year 1852 Mr. John Crawford built and sold to Mr. Silas Day the large brick house on the west side of Bank Street now owned by the W.C.T.U. This was an example of a New Albany home of the better class in the 1850s and 1860s.

We don’t know when the WCTU bought the house, although in 1882, New Albany’s chapter merited mention in the “Minutes of the Woman's Christian Temperance Union of the State of Indiana at the Annual Meeting.”

The New Albany WCTU’s zenith was in the early 1900s, during its ultimately successful campaign for statewide and later national Prohibition. Fortunately, Prohibition’s myriad and well-documented failures served to discredit America’s teetotalers far better than my puny words ever could. Today, the craft brewing revolution flourishes in New Albany on the very same spot where beer’s enemies once conspired.

That’s delicious, and it’s why we need a monument to victory over the prohibitionists.

---

The project I’m proposing is called Ice Cold WCTU, and it aims to provide a unique, fully functional entrance to Lloyd’s Landing, the NABC “beer garden” adjacent to Bank Street Brewhouse. Lloyd’s Landing is named for the late Lloyd Wimp, who I’m confident would have enthusiastically approved of this idea.

Ice Cold WCTU is designed to be multi-faceted. It addresses the history and architectural heritage of New Albany, provides a conceptual “memorial” suitable for becoming a genuine tourist attraction, addresses themes of art and sustainability, and will be the only thing like it, anywhere.

That’s because the WCTU helped bring about Prohibition, and Prohibition almost killed brewing in America – and so who better than a local brewer belonging to the new, flourishing “craft” generation to commemorate the killjoy villainy of the WCTU?

The memorial plaque might read:

“In a house once standing here, New Albany’s chapter of the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union advocated for Prohibition and abstinence from ‘Demon Alcohol.’ But Prohibition proved to be a disaster, and so it is vitally important that we remember the WCTU’s efforts favoring Prohibition, all the better for us to reject Prohibition, now and forever.”

Here’s how it might work.

At the entrance to Lloyd’s Landing, facing Bank Street, we’ll “trace” the front of the former WCTU house. This structure will take the form of pergolas (on the Lloyd’s Landing side, to eventually be linked to a shelter house or patio improvements) and an artistic façade or “false front” rising higher on the street side, constructed mostly of salvaged and recycled building materials. Because the front would mimic the roofline of the (an) old house, there’ll be at least the suggestion of a restored streetscape.

The facing will be representational, not an exact reproduction. It might be painted, or not. Vines or hops might grow on it, or not. Gaps could be complemented with shutters, window frames and other architectural mementoes, or not. It is to be artistic, not a duplicate. I envision an interpretive plaque, as worded above, as well as a life-sized, all-weather cutout bearing the photographic image of WCTU members – the Wild Women of the WCTU, next to whom visitors can pose for selfies.

But there’s even more.

---

Bank Street Brewhouse’s fully enclosed, former outdoor patio area already has been dubbed the WCTU Reading Room, and there is just enough unused wall space therein to redeploy as a museum, with exhibits explaining the WCTU, Prohibition, and their deleterious effects on civilized society.

The grand opening can be preceded by a community-wide art contest, in which local artists riff on a theme of fundamentalist zealotry. For the occasion, we might clear the former dining room of furniture and display the art there. Behind the art, through the window, lies the brewery, and if those machines kill fascists, surely they eradicate prohibitionists as well.

Ice Cold WCTU simultaneously pushes so many red hot buttons that I’m hard pressed to count them all.

It restores a streetscape, references New Albany’s history and recognizes the city’s architectural heritage.

It serves as a permanent art project and tourist attraction.

It provides a focal point to rebranding Bank Street Brewhouse, something we need in the absence of a kitchen, giving us a place to begin or end brewery tours.

Best of all, every aspect of it is factually verifiable. It is non-fiction. To return yet again to the words of Santayana: "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it." There needs to be a memorial and a museum to the WCTU and Prohibition, because they must not be forgotten.

Now all I have to do is figure out a way to finance Ice Cold WCTU. If ever there was a Kickstarter project capable of succeeding, this is it.

Anyone know a grant writer?

As for the recycled materials, paging Mr. Steve Resch …

Steve, if you’re reading …

Ghosts of the WCTU, revisited.

These days, we drink beer on the same spot where in olden times, Prohibition was plotted by fanatics. Lately is has occurred to me that as an aficionado of history, a commemorative plaque alone may not be sufficient to scratch the itch, seeing as I firmly adhere to the Santayana dictum, "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it."

Consequently, a plan is taking root. Due diligence is yet to be completed, so in the interim, consider this project in Florida (thanks KG), which artistically and conceptually "traces" the footprints of former structures.

Prohibition is an "experiment" that doesn't need repeating. I suspect most of us imagine it won't, but to me, it's important to remember why the idiocy occurred in the first place.

Stay tuned for more.

Seussical performances this weekend will be alcohol-free.

Two weeks ago, NABC was contacted by New Albany RiverStage and asked to arrange beer and wine sales for the three Seussical the Musical shows coming this weekend to the Riverfront Amphitheater.

I agreed to their proposal and worked out time, permits, money and staffing on an otherwise busy weekend. NABC's commitment was to include a percentage of the proceeds to be donated to RiverStage to hep defray expenses.

If this is the first you've heard of it, it's because we all thought it best to respect the nature of the event as family-oriented entertainment, and be low-key about the adult beverage component. I'd been spreading word the old-fashioned way.

Just now, I've been informed that the city of New Albany has asked the organizers to refrain from offering alcoholic beverages for the Seussical event, so if I mentioned it to you recently, please recalibrate and know that the musical will go on as originally planned, without our participation.

Of course, you are encouraged to attend a performance of Seussical, which take place on Friday and Saturday at 8 p.m., and Sunday at 2:00 p.m. New Albany RiverStage is trying to make a point that if the amphitheater is used for quality events, people will come, and improvements will be justified.

Nash on the amphitheater: "Could this be a destination for huge crowds throughout the year?"

The point being made by the city is harder to fathom, but it isn't as though we're unaccustomed to that feeling.

Package store empire opposes beer and wine at the Indiana State Fair.

"Big Red Liquors spoke in sole opposition to the bill during the hearing, citing concerns that greater access to alcohol would lead to abuse."

Meh. Why not let the reportable facts about state fair prohibition do the talking, and refrain from editorializing?

Meanwhile, the larger issue in this and numerous other legislative matters pertains not to Big Red's bizarre family-oriented fears (it only recently paid to be the guild's title sponsor at our Winterfest) but the irony of multinationals (begin with AB-InBev for the sake of convenience) kicking back at localism's palpable shift with their rheumy-eyed complaints about discrimination against the big guy, mostly prefaced with the latest, greatest bogeyman: "Granholm." 

Of course, they haven't been above rigging the marketplace by whatever means are available over a period of decades. Now they want protection against changing tastes and local shift. Screw the big guys -- but of course, that's just my opinion.

Based on what I heard yesterday, my guess is that the state fair's prohibition will end, and when given the buyer's choice as to what it purchases and from whom, the presence of Indiana beer and wine will be untainted by Stella Artois.

Brewers push for alcohol sales at Ind. State Fair, by Summer Ballentine (AP)

INDIANAPOLIS (AP) — A nearly seven-decade-old ban on alcohol at the Indiana State Fair could come to an end if lawmakers can reconcile desires to promote local brews with concerns about maintaining the fair's "family friendly" atmosphere.

An Indiana House committee heard testimony Wednesday on a proposal to lift a ban on alcohol at the fair. The bill passed the Senate but still needs approval from the House and Gov. Mike Pence before it could take effect. A vote is expected next week.

State fair officials and beer brewers say the time has come to showcase Indiana-made craft beers and wines alongside other agricultural products. Liquor, not just wine and beer, also would be permitted if the bill becomes law.

Indiana alcohol legislation, teetotaling and "public safety."

Yes, Representative Bill Davis is serious: If small brewers were to sell closed containers of craft beer at farmers markets (as farmhouse wineries already can), public drunkenness and illicit fornication soon would chase the kiddos away from the heirloom tomato stall. I was there in the room when Davis remarked that if he had his way, Prohibition would yet again be the law(less) of the land.

Perhaps soon the legislature of Mississippi will begin its sessions with a new prayer: "Thank God for Indiana, or else we'd be the most ... "

You know, red state shit.

Legislature had little taste for alcohol bills, by Maureen Hayden (CNHI Statehouse Bureau)

Greensburg — When it comes to alcohol, the 2013 legislative session may be marked more by what it didn’t do to boost booze sales than what it did.

Legislators did decide to let a small group of well-established wineries and breweries to get into the business of distilling spirits, and it cleared the way for an auction of some cheap liquor licenses for lakefront development in a resort community on Lake Michigan. But they crafted both bills to have narrow impact.

In turning down another bill that would have given Indiana breweries the same right as Indiana wineries to sell their products at farmers’ markets, the legislative gatekeepers signaled their distaste for lifting Indiana’s historically strict limits on alcohol.

“If we did that, the next thing you’d know, we’d have farmers markets turning into liquor stores,” said House Public Policy Chairman Bill Davis, a Republican from Portland who’s played a key role in killing alcohol expansion bills.

Davis is a teetotaler who’s repeatedly killed a bill that would allow grocery and liquor stores to sell carry-out alcohol on Sundays. But he said decisions aren’t based on his personal views, but on what’s best for the public safety.

What a novel idea, basing it on actual evidence, as opposed to blackmail.

Social drinkers/drivers with a lower blood alcohol count aren't the ones inflicting mayhem on the streets and roads. Never have been. Chronic violators are the problem, and a .05 BAC standard does nothing to bring them into compliance. Measures like this are thinly veiled prohibitionism in a nation that chronically undervalues public transportation because its libido fixates on the presumed "freedom" of the automobile.

Pfui.

Tighter Indiana drunken driving law seems unlikely (Associated Press)

INDIANAPOLIS — Some key Indiana legislators don’t expect the state to adopt a federal safety board’s recommendation that the threshold for drunken driving be cut nearly in half.

The National Transportation Safety Board said in its proposal last week that drunken-driving deaths could be reduced if states lowered the current 0.08 blood-alcohol level for driving to 0.05 percent ...

... “I think before we go running off and introducing law, because somebody suggested we should be blackmailed, let’s look at the data and see what’s most effective and with what do we get the most reduction in alcohol-related injuries,” (House transportation committee Chairman Ed) Soliday said. “Some of that may not need a law passed.”

Artisan distilling: Legislative loosening and other flanking maneuvers.

Even a cynic like me must doff his chapeau in recognition of the political artistry involved in moving the "artisan distillery" bill past Bill Davis, who is as ardent and unapologetic a prohibitionist as Carrie Nation ever dreamed of being.

State may loosen rules for micro-distilleries: Bill could help small entrepreneurs capitalize on growing demand for ‘locally grown’ drink, by Maureen Hayden (CNHI Statehouse Bureau via Pharos-Tribune)

INDIANAPOLIS — The Indiana General Assembly isn’t ready to let Hoosiers buy booze at a grocery store on Sundays, but lawmakers may be willing to loosen up the state’s tight alcohol laws for artisans who craft beer, wine and spirits.

Legislation to allow Sunday sales of carryout alcohol from retail stores died in the House last week. But several other alcohol-related bills are making their way through the legislature, all aimed at helping small entrepreneurs capitalize on the growing demand for “locally grown” drink.

They include a bill that would allow farm wineries to sell their products directly to retailers and a bill that would let the makers of craft beers sell their products at farmer’s markets and trade shows.

There’s also legislation aimed at relaxing Indiana liquor laws to allow the creation of micro-distilleries that would specialize in producing small batches of bourbons, whiskey, vodkas and gins.

Bank Street Brewhouse's former patio will be rechristened as the WCTU Reading Room.

See also: Construction on Lloyd's Landing at Bank Street Brewhouse begins this week. Here are the plans and details.

With the imminent expansion of Bank Street Brewhouse to the north, creating an outdoor garden to be known as Lloyd’s Landing in honor of the late Lloyd “Highwayman” Wimp, we will rechristen the former covered patio space as the WCTU Reading Room.

This requires a brief explanation.

Once upon a time, there were three separate lots between the Fox law office building to the south of Bank Street Brewhouse, and the Ricke agency to the north. Three grand houses built during the city of New Albany’s 19th-century adolescence stood on these lots until just after World War II. The first house to be demolished was the middle one, around 1950. Bank Street Brewhouse now operates from the remodeled garage building erected there.

Circa 1955, the houses on either side also were taken down, to be replaced by parking lots. It so happens that the house on the north side of Bank Street Brewhouse was owned for a very long time by New Albany’s branch of the Women’s Christian Temperance Union. City guides dating from 1954 all the way back to 1919 identify the house as the WCTU’s chapter headquarters.

The NA-FC library’s web site contains a snippet about this long forgotten structure, as written in 1937 – just after Prohibition mercifully ended.

In the year 1852 Mr. John Crawford built and sold to Mr. Silas Day the large brick house on the west side of Bank Street now owned by the W.C.T.U. This was an example of a New Albany home of the better class in the 1850s and 1860s, and Mrs. Bowman, a daughter of Mr. Day, gives us a glimpse of the family life. She says, "I have a vivid memory of a morning when the family gathered in the back parlor for prayers, a daily institution in our home. I can see the large room, the light filtering through the shutters upon the white and gold walls, the green velvet carpet, the black haircloth furniture, and the tamboured muslin curtains, and I can see the form of my sister, a bride, lately returned from her wedding journey, sitting at the melodeon, leading us in our usual morning hymns. I remember her morning robe of buff pique, form-fitting, and opening all down the front over an under robe of white embroidery. She looked beautiful to my admiring eyes. The melodeon was always used at prayers and to accompany hymn singing on Sunday evenings.

I’m uncertain precisely when the WCTU came to inhabit the house, although in 1882, New Albany’s chapter merited mention in the “Minutes of the Woman's Christian Temperance Union of the State of Indiana at the Annual Meeting.

It is reasonable to surmise that the New Albany WCTU’s zenith came in the early years of the 20th-century, during the successful campaign for nationwide Prohibition. Accordingly, Prohibition’s myriad and well-documented subsequent failures corroded the strength of America’s teetotalers. These days in New Albany, the craft brewing revolution flourishes on the very spot where its enemies once thrived, and symbolism like this is too delicious to ignore.

Hence, the evolution of the WCTU Reading Room at Bank Street Brewhouse. Your suggestions and questions are welcomed.

Prohibition: "Millions of otherwise honest citizens routinely flouted the law."

Looking for a sobering account of the carnage inflicted by "small-town white Protestants" running amok? You know: The type tending to populate mega-churches where the regional economic development mob likes to congregate, ignoring the separation of church and state? This book, "Last Call: The Rise and Fall of Prohibition," written by Daniel Okrent, sounds like a wonderful exposition of the excesses of doltery, fear and godliness, not necessarily in that order.

Temperance to Excess, by David Oshinsky (New York Times Sunday Book Review)

... Okrent resists the chance to link Prohibition to the current political scene. But the comparisons are tempting, to say the least. About a century ago, a group of determined activists mobilized to confront the moral decay they claimed was destroying their country. Their public demon was alcohol, but their real enemy was an alien culture reflected by city dwellers, recent immigrants and educated elites. Always a minority, the forces of Prohibition drove the political agenda by concentrating relentlessly on their goal, voting in lockstep on a single issue and threatening politicians who did not sufficiently back their demands. They triumphed because they faced no organized opposition. Americans were too distracted — perhaps too busy drinking — to notice what they had lost ...

Another NA (non-alcoholic) election day.

Longtime readers have seen this one before, but it's appropriate to repeat these sentiments before each election. The text below is my latest reworking, slightly edited, and as published as a "Mug Shot" article for LEO (it appeared on Wednesday, April 30, 2008).

Needless to say: The Public House will not be open until 6:00 p.m. on Tuesday, November 4. Sportstime Pizza will observe regular hours beginning at 11:00 a.m., for what is destined to be an excruciatingly dry lunch. Sportstime has four flat screens to watch election returns, and in a departure from the norm, we'll have a couple of televisions available at the Public House, one in the front room, and, for the first time, another in the bar.

There'll also be another Elector Day/Election Night promotion. When the doors open at 6:00 p.m., you can buy an NABC pint glass of Elector "It Makes Democracy Pointless" Ale at the regular price and keep the glass. Limited to the first 50 or so customers.

---

If everyone gets to vote ahead of time, what's the rationale for banning alcohol on Election Day?

---

Yes, Election Day brings with it roughly eleven hours of state-mandated prohibition against the sale of demon rum, and consequently the bars can't open until the polls close. Of course, one might drink continuously until 3:30 or 4:00 a.m. election morning, and then nurse a carry-out six-pack or a bottle of single malt Scotch during the comparatively brief time it takes to watch an Adam Sandler DVD before crawling off in a stupor to vote when the polls open at six.

Presumably, this unwelcome vestige of an otherwise discredited social policy serves as a bulwark against the horrific possibility that unscrupulous politicos or their conniving agents might swap half-pints of Kessler (or a similarly valued slopping spree at the community's on-premise watering holes) in exchange for a poor wretch's vote.

As there exists no commensurate prohibition against the sale of strong black coffee, chocolate-covered Krispy Kremes and hickory-smoked bacon, apparently the veiled but very real threat of breakfast-induced bribery is not worthy of the same scrutiny as that posed by the insidious grape and the grain.

If you're hopelessly intoxicated after ingesting that half-pint of Kessler, are you really any more destructive to democracy than the perfectly sober voter who is following instructions provided by a fundamentalist preacher, who in turn has promised not temporal inebriation, but a favorable reference when the time comes to take up residence in heaven?

I think not, and hope you had the foresight to visit your favorite package store on Monday night. Otherwise, remember that the taps open at 6:00 p.m., and to quote Groucho Marx, then there'll be "dancing in the streets, drinking in the saloons, and necking in the parlor."