New Carnpa1gn Blind Pigs Won't

------ -~--------------- - - --- ---- Yo! We're back and bladder than ever, ou iss ants ... 20 September What's shakin' : unzip your, er, lip 1990 - Dr. Sex is back! Vol. II No.1 ofind out what's Op:... p. 4 oColumns! We got columns... p. 5+ MSU's alternative oRock with the Provoc .. p. 5 o uR-1 Fun Page is back.. p. 8 and truly Ofind Out what's About.. p. 9 inde endent voice o Geek of the Week.. p. 11 Police use ·old law in E.L. to students: new carnpa1gn• Blind pigs won't fly Bv M.L. BvT1M ELRICK '~ SILVERTHORN uR-1 SPECIAL uR-1 MANAGING CORRESPOt«>ENT EDITOR More than The beer half a century stops here. ago, Prohibi Students tion-era police are irate that in big cities the under- began using a ·cover blind new state pig operations statute to raid that rolled underground large parties clubs, blind to a halt last pigs and year will speakeasies continue this where the key fall .. to the door "Any was often a opportunity password we have to whispered in identify such smokey activities will rooms by be utilized, close ac and that's quaintances. (the under- Today, cover opera police in some tions) pretty coUege towns much the only are using that way we samelaw have," said now 57 years Tom Dority, old - to East Lansing break up large city manager. student ~ · However, parties where ELPD clears a student from MSU kicker John Langeloh's post-football party Oct. 21. He was one of some stu- $2 or $3 several people arrested and charged for operating a blind pig. uR-1photo/LEWIS GEYER 11 opens the door to all the beer you Hedman was the ninth time in the dents are an"gered by the under- anything happens (at the party), to can drink. 1989-90 school year that a cover operations. go in hunting for them, is wrong," Last spring's arraignment of student had been charged for a "I think for police to treat says packaging major Greg 20-year-old MSU student Bron See OLD LAW, p. 10 students like criminals before See NOPE, ~ - 2 fjif@j·1fllliii§§J.ltj•ii;(.]tili@ji·ZllltiJi'itHi'j·lilQ@Mj<·Jii·>«l(f:i!@@it@il~fi·lfll@WUft'iM11f&!iit·lil 2 • university Reporter-Intelligencer 20 September 1990 From NOPE, p. 1 Fomasiero said that although Fomasiero. it's ridiculous for people to go "With the problem we have around having parties and not with people selling drugs all over know who's coming in, people campus, I don't think selling should still pretty much be able to alcohol is as serious a problem; do what they want. He also said he added. that he wasn't sure that the felony "They don't need to come In charge is appropriate to the crime. here undercover; said business Said Van Dam: "We're college major Heather Van Dam, who students. These are our last fun lives on Charles Street, one of the days - we're not hurting any primary areas targeted for en body: the uR-I is looking for a few forcement. 'What the hell else are we "Our house is private: . supposed to do; we're bored," good men (and women) - and Dority said the operations are said Leisa Thompson, an interdici justified by rampant underage plinary humanities major. we won't even send you drinking and large, often violent "My life has been hell for the parties. last few months," said Amy Allen, "last October, at the party a 23-year-old from Grand Blanc anywhere sand will get in your where blind pig violations were who spent time in jail on a blind issued at a house on Spartan pig conviction this summer after undies ... WE NEED: Street, there were people all over graduating from MSU. the streets and complaints from Allen said that enforcement of several blocks away; Dority said. the statute means a whole new •news and entertainment cor "There's nothing wrong with ballgame in East Lansing. parties - in a college town you "I don't think partying in respondents; expect that - but when you get general is going to decrease, but I 400, 500 students, it gets out of think people are going to think hand," Capt. Richard Murray said. twice before holding a big bash •photographers and artists; Dority also said that students that they charge money for," she attending blind pigs can receive a said. "There's not going to be any •advertising account execs. misdemeanor attendance ticket, more of this good old-fashioned though no such citations were charging at the door stuff like given out last year. there used to be." call 353-0040 or 372-6562 "If people were to obstruct or Police Chief Tom Hendricks give officers trouble, those indi was unavailable for comment on ACT NOW, GRUNT! viduals would certainly be particu the undercover operations or . to enlist. lar! vulnerable " Dori said. violence at the arties. the university Reporter-Intelligencer ·Page Three The Second Front Page Police clear students from Cedar Village Oct. 14. The following weekend, the first blind pig arrests were made. - uR-1photo/MATTHEW GOEBEL The Purple Gang and Black Hand moved on to a deserted spot in Nevada - which eventually rose from the dust to be crowned Las Vegas - and President Franklin Delano Roosevelt's country thought that the days of blind pigs were a thing of the past. For decades, they were in fact right. But as police in college towns sought to control the excesses of the 60s and 70s, the blind pig law niade a comeback. In the 1980's, Kalamazoo and Mt. Pleasant police began to crack down on their respective Lafayette Street and End of the World parties, with some success. Until recently, though, East Lansing's semi-annual Cedarfest remained a blight in the college town of more than 53,000. Enter the blind pig statute. To wipe out the party, city ordinances were passed and police patrols beefed up. Last fall, after a one-year Cedarfest lull, East Lansing and state police staged a massive mobilization to prevent a recurrance of the destruction and violence which caused about $5,000 in damage when 3,000 people rampaged after the MSU-U of M football game. Hoping to stop such mass / partying, which often spills over into residential areas where loud noise, Blind pig law is gone, but not littering and trespassing have caused residents to complain, Ingham county prosecutors found forgotten and now back again - and East Lansing police invoked - the blind pig law. Last spring, like in many Bv GREG GILLESPIE Act became the 18th Amendment calling for its repeal. By the late college towns, large parties were AND M.L ELRICK to the U.S. Constitution. 1920s, organized crime had moved conspicuously absent in East uR-1 CORRESPONDENTS A proponent of Prohibition, into Detroit and was contributing to Ford was worried that thousands of the lawlessness and corruption Lansing, Capt. Richard Murray From Prohibitions roots, the immigrant workers flooding into already tearing the city apart. says, in part due to city efforts to blind pig statute has come a long Detroit would fall prey to the Detroit's notorious Purple Gang inform students that big parties will way. demons of tobacco and liquor. He was the first mob to move into the be broken up. Police are also using Originally used with laws formed a Department of Sociology illegal liquor trade. Led by the undercover officers to break up the designed to halt the illegal liquor within the Ford Motor Company to Bernstein brothers; they murdered big parties that do occur, he said. trade across the Detroit River, the check his employees' homes and and bribed their way to being nearly Trombley said Mt. Pleasant has statute has been brought out of the awarded bonuses for clean living. the exclusive supplier of illegal seen large-scale partying decrease, closet to prosecute students in However, the "noble experi liquor. They were eventually and students are accepting the college towns. ment" backfired. Rum-running overthrown by the Black Hand, a philosophy that bigger is not better. When the statute was passed, across the Detroit river became group of Sicilian immigrants linked Kalamazoo has also seen it is almost cerain that legistators rampant and hundreds of saloons, to Mafia families in Chicago and partying fall off, and DoHman said didn't envision its use against coined blind pigs and speakeasies, New York. the Lafayette Street party is college students. Rather, the blind sprung up throughout the city of Ironically, Michigan, the first basically a thing of the past. pig law was the offspring of Prohibi D.etroit. The illegal liquor trade state to enact Prohibition, in 1933 In Ann Arbor, partying "seems tion, brought about in Michigan in employed an estimated 50,000 became the first state to repeal it. to be on the downturn - if not, at 1918 by a combination of a growing people in Michigan alone, making it Repeal proponents said that least it's controlled at an acceptable nationwide temperance movement one of the state's largest employers legalizing the liquor industry would tolerance," Conn Said. and the influence of tea-totaller - second only to Ford Motor pull the country out of the 1929 "I credit that with the students," Henry Ford. Michigan was the first Company. Depression. Legitimate saloons · he said. state to ban all production and sale This caused a dramatic about reopened; and the most popular However~ all agreed partying would of.liquor.

Load more