Beer sales in Whiteclay, Nebraska are still on hold. The Nebraska Supreme Court has rejected an attempt to resume beer sales next to the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota that has been plagued by alcohol problems.
On Friday morning the Supreme Court issued their opinion on the Liquor Control Commission's April decision not to issue four Whiteclay liquor stores new licenses.
The court did not rule on the merits of the appeal. Instead, it determined the appeal by the four retailers that sold beer was improperly filed, because they did not provide notice to citizens opposed to their licenses.
The decision is a victory for opponents of the beer sales in Whiteclay. “Today’s Nebraska Supreme Court decision means that the shame of Whiteclay is over. It also means huge rocks have been removed from the road to recovery for many of the Oglala Lakota Sioux Nation and the Pine Ridge Reservation,” says Dave Domina, lawyer for the Sheridan County citizens who protested the liquor licenses. “The Supreme Court’s ruling is on legal issues. But the underlying concern, as is so often true of the law’s technical issues, is about ending pernicious beer sales among vulnerable Native persons,” Domina added.
Attorneys for the stores argued before the justices last month that the commission didn't have the grounds to take the stores' licenses away.
Whiteclay is a town of less than a dozen people that sells millions of cans of beer each year. It sits across the border from the dry reservation.