Nebraskans are shocked to learn that a portion of the second-poorest area in the entire Western Hemisphere lies within our state, in the area that includes the Pine Ridge Reservation. Consider the following figures from the 2002-03 edition of Regional Differences in Indian Health, published by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services:

>> The age-adjusted alcoholism death rates in the Reservation area are nearly 17 times higher than the national population mean (108.7 per 100,000 people versus 6.7 nationally).

>> The age-adjusted tuberculosis death rates in the Reservation area are eight times higher than the national population mean (2.4 per 100,000 versus 0.3 nationally).

>> The age-adjusted diabetes mellitus death rates in the Reservation area are more than five times higher than the national population mean (68.7 per 100,000 versus 13.3 nationally).

>> The age-adjusted suicide rates in the Reservation area are nearly three times higher than the national population mean (29.7 per 100,000 versus 11.2 nationally).

Because a majority of the Pine Ridge Reservation lands are located within the borders of South Dakota, some suggest that this is a state sovereignty issue. However, the effects spill into our state, including the numerous medical and legal concerns that define Whiteclay, Neb., (population 14).

Whiteclay’s four package stores sell the equivalent of more than 3 million cans of beer annually. Adult alcoholism rates on Pine Ridge have been estimated to exceed 65 percent.

In an era when bitterness can define the political landscape, our Legislature passed a modest bill this year. In July, the Douglas County Republican Party passed a resolution calling for the establishment of a committee to seek viable solutions for the extreme poverty on the Pine Ridge Reservation. Independently, later that month, the Nebraska Democratic Party passed an identical resolution. This solution-seeking-committee would consist of the governors of Nebraska and South Dakota as well as the president of the Lakota Sioux Nation.

While the choice of sobriety is an individual decision, there are several things Nebraskans can do to provide hope:

>> Demand enforcement of existing Nebraska laws in Whiteclay, Neb.

>> Empower our elected officials to begin seeking long-term solutions to this extreme poverty, including calling upon the government of South Dakota to participate.

>> Create awareness by sharing this commentary with family members, friends, co-workers and congregants.

>> Take specific action by sending letters and e-mails and placing telephone calls to elected officials.

>> Use social networking to enhance awareness.

>> Contact the Whiteclay awareness committee (WhiteclayAwareness@gmail.com) to schedule a speaker and-or show the film “The Battle for Whiteclay.” (Include schools, civic or business organizations, churches, synagogues, mosques or living rooms.)

This nonpartisan issue is gaining momentum. Readers of the New Testament will recognize the passage, “I tell you the truth, whatever you did not do for the least of these, you did not do for me.” It would be a moral failure for Nebraskans to allow this misery to continue.

To quote Edmund Burke, “If not us, then who? If not now, then when?”

The writer is an assistant professor in the College of Arts and Sciences at Bellevue University. He is assistant director for the university’s Center for American Visions and Values.

Editor’s note: This article has been updated to include a clarification of the position of the governor’s office on the matter of jurisdiction over the town of Whiteclay. The governor’s office does not respond to nor speak on behalf of political parties.

LINCOLN, Neb. – Addressing crime in the town of Whiteclay, Neb., which sells some four million cans of beer and malt liquor annually, almost entirely to Oglala Sioux Tribe members from the dry Pine Ridge Reservation, is “complicated and complex,” according to the office of Governor Dave Heineman, a Republican. Said Ashley Cradduck, spokeswoman for the state’s governor, “The Indians are coming from Pine Ridge, and that’s in South Dakota.”

This follows a failed attempt at the state Republican Party’s July convention to pass a resolution to explore solutions to crime and other problems arising in the northwestern Nebraska hamlet. Offenses in Whiteclay reported by tribal members and advocates – but rarely investigated, much less adjudicated – have included sex trafficking of Indian women and children, trading of sex for alcohol, murder, rape, assault, drug dealing, soliciting, liquor sales to underage and intoxicated customers, illegal on-premises and public drinking, harassment by paid toughs, selling of stolen goods, and food stamp fraud, according to prominent social justice advocate Frank LaMere, Winnebago, who has long fought to stop the illegal flow of alcohol from Nebraska to nearby Pine Ridge.

Heineman’s spokesperson also noted Whiteclay has few residents. Some estimates put the permanent population as low as six, in a burg with four liquor stores but no schools, churches, or other evidence of civic life.

With Whiteclay crime having little impact on whites, residents of surrounding Sheridan County feel the town provides useful function. According to filmmaker Mark Vasina, many see it as a magnet for Indians that keeps them out of white towns.

“Residents, as well as a beverage industry lobbyist in the state capitol, make this point onscreen in the film I made about Whiteclay.” Vasina’s acclaimed – and devastating – movie, “The Battle for Whiteclay,” won Best Political Documentary at the 2009 New York International Independent Film Festival and has been shown widely in Native and non-Native communities – visit www.battleforwhiteclay.org for more information.

Whiteclay is not a new source of alcohol and despair. The town is a successor to so-called whiskey ranches set up in the 1880s to move alcohol onto what was then Pine Ridge Agency, according to LaMere, who is also director of the Four Directions Community Center, in Sioux City, Iowa. The bootleggers who first supplied the liquor were replaced during the second half of the 20th century by bars and then retail stores licensed by the state of Nebraska.

The bootleggers haven’t vanished, though. Individuals make bulk purchases they resell illegally on Pine Ridge, where virtually all crime is alcohol related. Over the last decade, rallies originating in Pine Ridge – and met in Nebraska by heavily armed police in riot gear – have demanded a shutdown of Whiteclay.

The price of politics

The resolution Nebraska Republicans declined to support was crafted jointly by Douglas County Republicans and Democrats, political clubs in the state’s most populous area, around Omaha. Douglas County Democratic Chairman Mike Leahy, called Whiteclay “a human rights disaster,” and the state Democratic party gave the resolution a thumbs-up at its July convention – no surprise, given that it had ratified a more strongly worded resolution in 2004.

LaMere said he was pleased to see the bipartisan county effort and the statewide Democratic support but was dismayed Republicans, Nebraska’s dominant party, didn’t follow suit. “Over the years, tens of thousands have died, and thousands of children have been orphaned, thanks to Whiteclay. How can Republicans say they have family values? Nebraska has blood on its hands. At some point, Nebraskans need to say, ‘We’re better than this.’”

In explaining the issue’s longevity, LaMere said some fear the prospect of healthy and strong Lakota people. He also noted that Whiteclay generates millions of dollars in annual profits for storeowners there, along with hundreds of thousands in taxes for the state and federal government. “If anything like Whiteclay occurred in Omaha or Lincoln, it would be fixed immediately. And if Whiteclay were brought under control, it would call into question every reservation border town like it nationwide, and that would change the face of Indian country.”

Whiteclay is at the nexus of racism and money, Vasina said. “What was slavery except a way for white people to become rich by declaring another group different, therefore to be exploited? This is similar. The state liquor commission and business community want Whiteclay as it is. They say controls there would be a slippery slope, meaning increased regulation throughout Nebraska, so they turn a blind eye to what’s happening to Indian people.”

Cleaning up Whiteclay could be good for business, Vasina said, pointing to a well-known government crackdown that created an economic boom. “In the mid to late ’90s, New York City’s Times Square was purged of porn shops and other seedy businesses and is now a top tourist destination.”

If Times Square could move so quickly from extremely violent and dangerous to family-friendly, so could Whiteclay, he said, envisioning legitimate businesses catering to visitors and reservation residents.

Moving forward

Leahy felt that even though the bipartisan resolution did not pass both party conventions, the discussions increased awareness, which was a step in the right direction. Vasina said efforts continue to catch the attention of the federal government, state elected officials and the population at large.

The filmmaker also pointed to the increasing numbers of people calling for a solution, including Nebraskans for Peace, members of both political parties, university students, and a group of high school students who visited the town and produced an affecting YouTube video, “The Hidden Massacre of Whiteclay, Nebraska.” These supporters have also taken to the streets; about half of those arrested during Whiteclay protests were non-Native.

What do these small steps bode for the future? LaMere called Whiteclay a tinderbox. “People are angry. I know I am.”

LINCOLN, Neb. – Crime in the town of Whiteclay, Neb., which sells some four million cans of beer and malt liquor annually, almost entirely to Oglala Sioux Tribe members from the dry Pine Ridge Reservation, is not Nebraska’s responsibility, said Ashley Cradduck, spokeswoman for the state’s governor, Dave Heineman, a Republican. “The Indians are coming from Pine Ridge, and that’s in South Dakota.”

Cradduck was responding to questions about a failed attempt at the state Republican Party’s July convention to pass a resolution to explore solutions to crime and other problems arising in the northwestern Nebraska hamlet. Offenses in Whiteclay reported by tribal members and advocates – but rarely investigated, much less adjudicated – have included sex trafficking of Indian women and children, trading of sex for alcohol, murder, rape, assault, drug dealing, soliciting, liquor sales to underage and intoxicated customers, illegal on-premises and public drinking, harassment by paid toughs, selling of stolen goods, and food stamp fraud, according to prominent social justice advocate Frank LaMere, Winnebago, who has long fought to stop the illegal flow of alcohol from Nebraska to nearby Pine Ridge.

Heineman’s spokesperson also noted Whiteclay has few residents. Some estimates put the permanent population as low as six, in a burg with four liquor stores but no schools, churches, or other evidence of civic life.

With Whiteclay crime having little impact on whites, residents of surrounding Sheridan County feel the town provides useful function. According to filmmaker Mark Vasina, many see it as a magnet for Indians that keeps them out of white towns.

“Residents, as well as a beverage industry lobbyist in the state capitol, make this point onscreen in the film I made about Whiteclay.” Vasina’s acclaimed – and devastating – movie, “The Battle for Whiteclay,” won Best Political Documentary at the 2009 New York International Independent Film Festival and has been shown widely in Native and non-Native communities – visit www.battleforwhiteclay.org for more information.

Whiteclay is not a new source of alcohol and despair. The town is a successor to so-called whiskey ranches set up in the 1880s to move alcohol onto what was then Pine Ridge Agency, according to LaMere, who is also director of the Four Directions Community Center, in Sioux City, Iowa. The bootleggers who first supplied the liquor were replaced during the second half of the 20th century by bars and then retail stores licensed by the state of Nebraska.

The bootleggers haven’t vanished, though. Individuals make bulk purchases they resell illegally on Pine Ridge, where virtually all crime is alcohol related. Over the last decade, rallies originating in Pine Ridge – and met in Nebraska by heavily armed police in riot gear – have demanded a shutdown of Whiteclay.

The price of politics

The resolution Nebraska Republicans declined to support was crafted jointly by Douglas County Republicans and Democrats, political clubs in the state’s most populous area, around Omaha. Douglas County Democratic Chairman Mike Leahy, called Whiteclay “a human rights disaster,” and the state Democratic party gave the resolution a thumbs-up at its July convention – no surprise, given that it had ratified a more strongly worded resolution in 2004.

LaMere said he was pleased to see the bipartisan county effort and the statewide Democratic support but was dismayed Republicans, Nebraska’s dominant party, didn’t follow suit. “Over the years, tens of thousands have died, and thousands of children have been orphaned, thanks to Whiteclay. How can Republicans say they have family values? Nebraska has blood on its hands. At some point, Nebraskans need to say, ‘We’re better than this.’”

In explaining the issue’s longevity, LaMere said some fear the prospect of healthy and strong Lakota people. He also noted that Whiteclay generates millions of dollars in annual profits for storeowners there, along with hundreds of thousands in taxes for the state and federal government. “If anything like Whiteclay occurred in Omaha or Lincoln, it would be fixed immediately. And if Whiteclay were brought under control, it would call into question every reservation border town like it nationwide, and that would change the face of Indian country.”

Whiteclay is at the nexus of racism and money, Vasina said. “What was slavery except a way for white people to become rich by declaring another group different, therefore to be exploited? This is similar. The state liquor commission and business community want Whiteclay as it is. They say controls there would be a slippery slope, meaning increased regulation throughout Nebraska, so they turn a blind eye to what’s happening to Indian people.”

Cleaning up Whiteclay could be good for business, Vasina said, pointing to a well-known government crackdown that created an economic boom. “In the mid to late ’90s, New York City’s Times Square was purged of porn shops and other seedy businesses and is now a top tourist destination.”

If Times Square could move so quickly from extremely violent and dangerous to family-friendly, so could Whiteclay, he said, envisioning legitimate businesses catering to visitors and reservation residents.

Moving forward

Leahy felt that even though the bipartisan resolution did not pass both party conventions, the discussions increased awareness, which was a step in the right direction. Vasina said efforts continue to catch the attention of the federal government, state elected officials and the population at large.

The filmmaker also pointed to the increasing numbers of people calling for a solution, including Nebraskans for Peace, members of both political parties, university students, and a group of high school students who visited the town and produced an affecting YouTube video, “The Hidden Massacre of Whiteclay, Nebraska.” These supporters have also taken to the streets; about half of those arrested during Whiteclay protests were non-Native.

What do these small steps bode for the future? LaMere called Whiteclay a tinderbox. “People are angry. I know I am.”

WHITECLAY, Neb. – While beer sales get most of the attention, some Whiteclay businesses survive and even prosper without selling alcohol.

Firmly rooted in Whiteclay, Lewis Abold and his son, Lou, opened their general merchandise store, Abe’s New and Used, about three years ago on Halloween. “This is our third summer,” Lewis Abold said.

Both men had worked retail. The elder Abold also helped to run a Western store in Rushville.

They decided to open their own business in the old Gamble’s Store building, figuring they could capture family shoppers coming into Nebraska to buy groceries at the two grocery stores. The small unincorporated town has no city sales tax or any state sales tax on food.

“We serve the whole reservation. Most of our customers are Native American,” Lewis Abold said.

His great-grandfather homesteaded just 9 miles from Whiteclay. His son, Lou Abold, makes up the fifth generation of the family to live and work in the small village 2 miles south of Pine Ridge.

He said his family is well known to the people living on reservation and especially the town of Pine Ridge. They once sold clothing, shoes and other merchandise out of a bus parked near the Pizza Hut restaurant in Pine Ridge.

“There are a lot of good people around here. I guess it’s because we know a lot of the people who grew up here,” he said.

Their new store features clothing, shoes, boots, saddles, tack, toys, bicycles, second-hand tools, and used pots, pans and dishes along with authentic Native American crafts. “Just a little bit of everything,” he said.

He noted that they don’t have a problem with the street people, many of whom wander into the town to openly drink in the open lots, abandoned houses or sidewalks.

“It all goes back to how you treat people,” Abold said.

The Abolds point to the variety of businesses that are in Whiteclay, including two grocery stores, two cafes, its new drive-through burger shop, two used-car dealerships, a gas station, an automobile body shop and the 555 Whiteclay ministry.

Michelle Talbot manages the new drive-through burger shop behind Arrowhead Inn. The business opened as a result of necessity, Coomes said.

Arrowhead owner and her boss, Jason Schwarting, agreed that there is a business opportunity for the town and plenty of room in his building.

Talbot said the large building and property once was owned by her parents, Albert Coomes and Melody Coomes. They ran a filling station and laundromat called Sioux Service.

Today, the long extended room on the east side of the building has been emptied of the coin-

operated washing machines and now has a counter where workers take orders and then assemble sandwiches and meals.

The drive-through offers a typical menu of hamburgers, fries, soft drinks and even soft-serve ice cream. It employs two people; one cooks on a six-burner gas stove and another serves the customers.

“We’re pretty busy. We’re coming into summer with all the softball games and summer activities,” Talbot said. “There’s a lot of positive things here.”

Lewis Abold said that if you look to the north, Pine Ridge in the last 25 years has gone through tremendous change, most of it for the better.

“It will happen here in Whiteclay. It just takes time,” he said.

Contact Jomay Steen at 394-8418 or jomay.steen@rapidcityjournal.com.

WHITECLAY, Neb. — Business is booming in Whiteclay, and it’s not just the 4.6 million cans of beer sold there last year.

Many people know Whiteclay as the small, unincorporated village on the border of Nebraska and the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, a tiny spot on the map with a big alcohol problem. It’s where four beer stores sold 191,649 cases of beer in 2009, according to the Nebraska Liquor Commission. That translates into about 4.6 million cans.

But two Whiteclay business owners said few people realize the border town is also the place that sold $2.7 million worth of groceries in 2009.

Vic Clarke, manager of Arrowhead Foods in Whiteclay, and Lance Moss, owner of the town’s other grocery store, Whiteclay Grocery, each did more than $1.3 million worth of business last year, without selling a single can of beer. They sell food and general merchandise, but no alcohol in their stores. At least 95 percent of their grocery customers come from Pine Ridge, people like Ron and Daniel Clifford, who drive 2 miles to Whiteclay almost daily to shop.

“No tax,” said Ron Clifford of his grocery shopping trips to Nebraska. “If we got the gas money, we’ll go to Chadron.” The nearest Wal-Mart is located in Chadron, 45 miles from Pine Ridge.

Nebraska exempts food products from its 5-½-cent sales tax, something that South Dakota doesn’t do.

And food prices are generally considered lower at the Whiteclay stores than they are at Sioux Nation Shopping Center’s grocery store in Pine Ridge village, owned by Cohen’s Wholesale out of Illinois.

On June 10, the Cliffords were among an estimated 1,000 customers who shopped for groceries in Whiteclay. At 12 a.m. on the 10th of each month, electronic food stamp cards are activated with the recipient’s monthly credits and by the time Moss opens his store at 8 a.m., people are waiting in line to shop. Parking lots are crowded and traffic jams the one paved road that passes through town.

“I’ll do one week’s worth of business in one day,” said Moss, who had sales receipts of about $24,000 on June 10.

The story is much the same across the street at Arrowhead Foods, where Clarke, the former owner, adds an extra cashier or two just to handle the monthly rush of shoppers. Neither store sells beer, wine or liquor, but Clarke proudly points out that he did sell $42,000 worth of broasted chicken in 2009.

“That’s a lot of broasted chicken,” he said.

———-

There are many reasons people drive from Pine Ridge to Whiteclay, and beer is just one of them, said Moss, a 41-year-old second-generation grocery store owner. Moss bought Whiteclay Grocery in 2000, a business he grew up in when his parents owned it until the 1980s. His mother, Cathy Anderson, runs the Whiteclay post office where about 50 people get their mail. The post office is located in the grocery store,

People come to Whiteclay to get their lawnmowers fixed and their chainsaws repaired. They come to buy used cars and to eat in the town cafe or its newly-opened drive-through burger shop.

Customers also come to town to shop for tools, tennis shoes and horse tack at Abe’s New & Used.

Norma Blacksmith and her niece Robyn Two Crow have more work than they can handle at the newly opened Native Quilting Shop. Blacksmith recently moved her longtime star quilting business out of her house in Pine Ridge and into a building in Whiteclay owned by the ABOUT Group, a local ministry that has been active in Whiteclay for six years.

And ever since the state of South Dakota raised taxes on cigarettes by $1 per pack in 2007, more reservation residents drive across the state line to purchase cigarettes in Whiteclay. Cigarette sales have quadrupled at his store, Moss said.

“A third of my total sales is probably cigarettes,” he said.

There are 20 businesses listed by the Nebraska Department of Revenue in the Whiteclay zip code, four of them off-sale beer stores. In 2009, Whiteclay businesses did almost $5 million ($4,965,000) in taxable sales, up from $4.2 million in 2008 and $3.9 million in 2007, according to Doug Ewald, Nebraska tax commissioner.

———-

The four beer “stores” — Jumping Eagle Inn; D&S Pioneer Service; State Line Liquor and Arrowhead Inn — are little more than big beer cooler storage units fronted by a sales counter in a small public area.

At the Arrowhead Inn, the beer cooler is an enormous L-shaped room in a former filling station that is kept at 40 degree. Beer is stacked 9 feet high.

The front of the package beer store is a counter, with several doors behind it that all lead to the cooler.

The beer stores comprise the majority of the net taxable sales in Whiteclay, but exact sales tax numbers from individual businesses are considered proprietary information and not available to the public. Jumping Eagle is owned by Stuart Kozal; D&S Pioneer is owned by Douglas and Steve Sanford; State Line is owned by Clay Brehmer and Arrowhead Inn is owned by Jason Schwarting, who also owns Arrowhead Foods.

Overall beer sales in Whiteclay have risen three years in a row; from nearly 400,000 gallons in 2007 to 426,586 gallons in 2008 and 431,207 gallons in 2009.

Clarke counts himself among five or six permanent residents of Whiteclay. He has lived in Whiteclay since 1993 in a five-bedroom house that’s attached to Arrowhead Foods, which was formerly VJ’s Market when he owned it. Clarke sold the store to Schwarting in 2008, but continues to manage it.

Others put Whiteclay’s population at 14, and according to the U.S. Census, 62 people live in the Whiteclay zip code, which covers a wider area of northern Sheridan County. Whatever its official population, 4.6 million cans of beer makes for a whopping “per capita” beer sales figure.

“You always hear in the media about how Whiteclay has the highest ‘per capita beer sales in the world,’” Clarke said. “Given our population, I probably sell more broasted chicken per capita than any place in the world, too. I bet I sell more hamburger per capita than anybody in the nation.”

With a 5-½ percent state sales tax in Nebraska, approximately $273,000 in sales tax was collected in Whiteclay in 2009, Ewald estimated.

That number doesn’t include motor vehicle taxes paid by used car dealers in Whiteclay or the $133,674 in state excise taxes and $250,100 in federal excise taxes that Whiteclay alcohol sales produced in 2009. Excise taxes are paid by the beer distributors out of Gering and Scottsbluff that service Whiteclay.

As a business owner, Moss doesn’t think Whiteclay gets its money’s worth in public services for the taxes that it sends to Lincoln each year.

“There’s really no public services in Whiteclay,” said Moss, who lives two miles south of town.

There is no municipal water source, or much in the way of public infrastructure in Whiteclay. Residents and businesses have private septic system for sewage disposal and garbage is burned in incinerators or barrels, since there is no commercial garbage collection in Whiteclay.

Its public safety needs are handled by either the Sheridan County Sheriff’s Department or the Nebraska Highway Patrol. Sometimes the Pine Ridge ambulance service sends emergency medical personnel for medical needs across the state line.

But Moss is also a pragmatist about the social problems that plague Whiteclay. He takes a fatalistic view of the alcohol-addicted vagrants who line its streets most day, panhandling customers who come and go from his grocery store.

“It is what it is,” Moss said. Nothing will change in Whiteclay until one of two things happens, he said: Individuals either make the choice to get off the streets or law enforcement removes them.

Moss rarely calls the sheriff or highway patrol to deal with troublesome vagrants, because law enforcement’s presence causes more problems for his paying customers than it solves with the vagrants, he said. He accuses police of ignoring the vagrants and taking down license plate numbers of people shopping in his store. Compliance checks for liability insurance, or issuing tickets for busted headlights, is often the result.

“The cop’s presence, it hurts business,” he said.

The Cliffords were back in Whiteclay on June 11, shopping for used tools from Lew Abold at his general merchandise store.

That day, as many others, they encountered their cousin J.J.Winters, one of 20 or so people loitering in Whiteclay. Vagrants sleep on the sidewalk, drink in abandoned buildings and wander Whiteclay panhandling for money to buy another beer.

Winters asked for money and a smoke, but only got a cigarette from his cousins.

Like many Native Americans, the Cliffords often feel an obligation to give money, food or a ride back home to Pine Ridge to their relatives that they encounter on the streets of Whiteclay.

“That way, they’re not bothering other people,” Ron explained.

Blacksmith, 70, said the addicted street people — some of whom are her relatives — are bothering her and others. She takes the opposite approach with them.

“They know they’re going to get preached at by me,” Blacksmith said. “I tell them Lakota warriors are not alcoholics and drug addicts.”

———-

Bruce Bonfleur, director of the ABOUT Group’s 555 Whiteclay Christian ministry, thinks the days are “numbered” for Whiteclay vagrants, in part because their daily existence is finally being acknowledged in the halls of state government in Lincoln.

Whiteclay is ready for transformation, said Bonfleur, and he has big plans for what it should look like.

He organized an April clean-up, Whiteclay Redux, 2010, with the help of a $10,000 state grant. The cleanup fell far short of his goals to demolish abandoned buildings.

His vision of the new, improved Whiteclay would have an aluminum can recycling facility; a commercial greenhouse operation, Green Tipi Gardens; a day labor program and a variety of Lakota artists marketing their crafts directly to tourists, as Blacksmith and Two Crows do.

Whiteclay should be the gateway to cultural tourism opportunities on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, not a repository for street people, he said,

Clarke is frustrated by Bonfleur’s approach to Whiteclay’s vagrant problem, something that Clarke accuses the ministry of increasing over the years by putting out a welcome mat of free meals and warm blankets. He has seen other ministries come and go through Whiteclay over the years and admits he’s suspicious of their motives and their results.

“Are we not enabling?” Clarke asks, naming a litany of free goods and services, including a disc golf course that Bonfleur offers in town.

Another ministry, Hands of Faith, serves three meals a week — two lunches and one breakfast — at 555 Whiteclay. A filthy couch that’s losing its stuffing sits in the shade outside the ministry’s building, providing a comfortable seat on a hot day.

But Bonfleur said his ministry has switched gears to provide more work opportunities, and fewer handouts, to vagrants. It was recently the recipient of a $30,000 partnership grant from the Northwest Community Action Partnership in Chadron. Those American Recovery and Reinvestment Act funds will pay for a day labor program and the planned greenhouse in Whiteclay, under the auspices of ABOUT.

The economic reality of Whiteclay is especially apparent in the location of the new drive-through burger shop managed by Michelle Talbot. It is housed in the back of the Arrowhead Inn beer store, in what was once a laundromat.

So the beer sales that contribute to exploitation and addiction on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation also provide a place for Talbot to run a thriving business that employs two people and provides a much needed service.

“There wasn’t any place to get a burger after 6 p.m.,” Talbot said.

The long-running battle to eliminate the human problems posed by Whiteclay may hinge on finding some way to balance the tensions between the sale of beer and the sale of everything else, including Talbot’s burgers.

Contact Mary Garrigan at 394-8424 or mary.garrigan@rapidcityjournal.com.

Jomay Steen contributed to this story.

(16) Comments

badger123 said on: July 23, 2010, 11:03 am
The Pine Ridge reservation’s tribal government needs to have a business branch that can build a mega store and mini mall or partnership with Walmart to provide services to the reservation residents. Keep those dollars on the reservation while providing employment for tribal members. If you don’t have the transportation to travel to Chadron, Rapid City, ect., you end up paying up to quadruple the price for an item you need at Sioux Nation. I think this is a good bet for the tribe to generate income and fullfil a need rather than the ill-conceived mining/carbon credit schemes.

Itsjustmyopinion said on: July 20, 2010, 6:17 pm
And I have to argue WicazoTanka I believe that there are many more than 12,000 people living on the reservation.

Itsjustmyopinion said on: July 20, 2010, 6:15 pm
Poor store owner… police presence hurts his business. What about unexplained deaths in White Clay? Maybe if there was more prevalent police presence, people wouldn’t be found dead in the abandoned buildings behind the booming alcohol businesses. Maybe Nebraska could use some of the tax revenue they are recieving to provide detox and treatment for the street people of White Clay. I have no sympathy for the business that would be loosing revenue because of police presence. Maybe the grocery shopping would be safer and more pleasant. White Clay provides opportunity for businesses, and not just the ones that provide alcohol. There are so few places in Pine Ridge to shop. You CAN get groceries and a good meal in White Clay if you want to see all the sadness. I’m not saying that alcohol sales need to stop, but the tax money being made from it should be used to help fight the disease.

WicazoTanka said on: July 20, 2010, 8:00 am
Shunkaska, I think you and I are on the same side. However, your arguments changed from the booze issue to many other retail issues. Strictly for the booze issue, we disagree and I still say again out of respect for the decision of the Oglalas who made the decision booze is poison and you don’t poison your own to save them.

From an economic perspective, Pine Ridge has what, 12,000 people living on it? Statistics say there are over 50% under the age of 18. How many more under age 21? (I know age will not stop most and there are plenty of under-21-alcoholics) You now have a market of perhaps 5,000. How many drink in that spectrum? How many are unemployed, 80%? Four stores to cater to a couple-three thousand drinkers where 700-800 have a job, that doesn’t make financial/business sense. You have Scenic, Gordon, Interior, Kadoka, Chadron, Rushville, Olerichs and Hermosa who all sell it and they won’t go away. Competition would remain fierce and the tribe or any other business person probably won’t take that gamble with their own money.

Would any store in Kyle, Sharps Corner, Pine Ridge, or Oglala want the business or associated ills? White Clay “sales” are in the millions. Taxes are in the hundreds of thousands of dollars, which go to the state. What is their profit margin (great for individual store owners with a small number of employees)? What does a $10/hour clerk make per year, $20K. $20k multiplied by 100 = $2 million in salaries. Manager salaries = $35-$40K, multiplied by 4 = $160K. Tribal tax vs. state tax? Will the drinkers go to White Clay to avoid the extra tribal tax and booze probably 10-15% more expensive? (yes) How many counselors are needed, 40 @ $60k/year, another $2.4 million in salaries per year? Four new buildings at $150k a piece or $800K.

The market will not bear the burden and the medicine is poison.

Junkyard Dog said on: July 20, 2010, 6:45 am
I have an idea! Lets allow it, and drop the tax on it so nonnatives will make the drive to the rez to save money?

shunkaska said on: July 19, 2010, 3:07 pm
“Wicazo” we find each other on opposite sides of a fence..I find the teaching Of Grand Fathers qualities of Honor, Humility, Generosity, Compassion, Perseverance, Humility and Wisdom also to be found everyday in my job…Trying to create jobs, to keep our dollar on the rez as long as we can before it leaves. The Jewish communities it is said will touch a dollar 8 times before it leaves, the Lakota is less than one. Why do people by more groceries off the Rez..Why can’t we have 4-6 tribal stores employing 100′s, we need to eat…To think our people do not drink and spend money to do so is to stick ones head in the sand, so why not open up 4 liqour stores and employe 60 more people…Yes we have a huge Alcohol and drug problem, statistics say unemployement is a huge factor..look at the suicide cluster we have, some also believe that has to do with no future..so again we create a center to educate, heal, to make whole agian.We would use todays best behavior modification plus our traditional by our elders..We spend alot of money on sporting goods why not clothe our reservation teams, sell the schools shoes and equipment,plus be open for our individual needs, maybe get off reservation teams to place orders…we agian create jobs…Someday I would love to see where our hand is not out to reseave but is out to hand money to someone in need…this is done thru education and creating jobs…why not spend the millions at home…we have needs,we can take care of them…

Comment Maker said on: July 19, 2010, 2:39 pm
If Whiteclay makes THAT much money, where does it go? If Whiteclay is making this much money, why doesn’t it incorporate itself? Build apartments, or improve their buildings; something. Where does their money go to? It’s just so complex to think about how all of these people are spending all this money to people who appear to be greedy and selfish.

WicazoTanka said on: July 19, 2010, 12:52 pm
It was told to me long that that to be a Lakota is a difficult thing (Lakota kin otehika yelo). The old ones required everyone to contribute to the group by being a brave and content whole person. They taught all of our grandfathers and grandmothers that ideology. Bad things happened to those granfathers and mothers but their lessons allowed for survival of those of left today. Some contemporaries follow them while some don’t.

The Oglala around when the decision was made to keep the rez dry were wise and knew of the poison in alcohol and how it made people crazy. Those decision makers were more Lakota in the sense they only thought and spoke in Lakota and the American ways were secondary. Many today, me included, think in English and try to back track to “what would our Lakota grandfathers do”.

The suggestion has been made for the Oglala of today to make the rez wet and reap the financial benefits of employing as was written “a hundred people” and several million in profit and taxes. Pine Ridge is inundated enough with the problems of alcohol and poisoning their own to save them is not a Lakota choice. The Old Ones’ wisdom would be cast aside for a few dirty dollars.

Programs and funding exist already, though like everywhere they are not sufficient to cover the need, and you can’t lead a horse (an alcoholic) and make make him drink (or stop drinking). The choice to be a whole person comes from within and their are plenty of family members who would welcome their “zombie relatives” back if they knew they were out of the zombie realm, the realm of being alive and waiting for death in a drunken haze. Recovered(ing) alcoholics in my family and circle of friends all say they themselves just got tired and woke up and that was the driving factor.

So again, honor your Old Ones and don’t poison your own to save them.

Good article by the way that showed something other than the beer and booze sale story.

greensleeves said on: July 19, 2010, 12:12 pm
It is nice to know that WhiteClay does provide services besides the sale of beer. I think what is really upsetting to me is that most of the grocery buying is done with food cards. Don’t these people have enough pride to get a job and feed their own families? I know jobs are hard to come by. but I have seen a lot of talent coming off the reservation. Why isn’t their a large Native American Art facility where these people can earn a living selling their wares? If you have ever been to Crazy Horse Monument, you can see there is a market for these works of art, why not on the reservation?

shunkaska said on: July 19, 2010, 11:22 am
You have a small community that sees a business oppurtunity and cashes in…than you have the Rez whinning about how much money this community makes on Alcohol and Grocery sales..their sales tax generates $260,000 for Nebraska and if anyone should be whinning it should be White Clay because it sounds like they get nothing in return for their tax money. The real sad story is the Pine Ridge Tribe for enabling this oppurtunity to slip thru their hands of employing their unemployed in Tribal Stores and Tribal liquor sales, not only do they missout of employing 100′s of tribal people in jobs from sackers/stockers/butchers/sporting goods/check out/asst mgs and mgs of the stores to the Liqour store mgs and workers and the profits go into the tribes pockets to pay for treatment facilities that higher our nurses/councilors/elders for traditional healing…instead we point fingers/have road blocks/its like holding on to this old dam with so many holes instead of building a new one that will open the doors for our reservation in employment and fiscal rewards…we can continue to do nothing but whine our change are approach to a swing in our favor….people shoud be having road blocks to keep us in the rez to spend our money instead of blaming communities that service our people…to say Pine ridge is a dry Rez is to show ones ignorance..we might not legally sell but the bootleggers have been getting rich and the surrounding communitys of the rez are making money that we should be making instead….To the good people of White Clay you are not to blame for our own laziness not to act in a business decission to blame you is to take the focus off our own short comings….

devils advocate said on: July 19, 2010, 11:01 am
Sicangu Warrior – i have to disagree, white clay is not murder in plain sight. its more like suicide. no one is forcing anyone to drink. simply meeting demand. Millions of people across the country use alcohol responsibly every day. Some dont. The demand is the problem…not the supply.

Pavlov said on: July 19, 2010, 8:48 am
Selling alcohol so close to the reservation is an invitation for criticism of your establishment. So get used to it, and know we will always be trying to drive them out. People will still drink, blah blah blah, not the point. The point is to have less access, not more. Only greed can explain their presence so near our lands. As for painting a ‘clearer picture’ the millions in groceries sold illustrate that White Clay could make plenty of cash selling us food but that is not good enough for them. The cash made from offering alcohol as well is not something the greedy shop owners are willing to part with. Greed is ugly, greedy people are ugly before God and the rest of us. I can’t imagine being a supplier of alcohol to my people, I guess that’s a Native quality-caring for others.

fallrivercitizen said on: July 18, 2010, 8:26 pm
what I find so ironic is that people seem to think if White Clay quit selling alcohol then there would not be anymore problems with Native Americans drink on the Rez!! Wake up people, they will just get it else where, or they will be drinking mouthwash, Lysol, Nyquil and any other thing they can get there hands on. Alcohlism is a terrible disease, but blaming the shop owners for it is like blaming your doctor for getting cancer

Sicangu Warrior said on: July 18, 2010, 9:39 am
White Clay Nebraska is a good example of the political values we are faced with today in America. Consumers vs business. How far can a business go to make a profit? Tylanol pulled it’s products that it knew was hurting it’s consumers. Do the business community in White Clay see the toils of their product and services? That is an acceptable risk to making their own mortage payments and livelyhood? The human cost seems to say White Clay Nebraska = murder in plain sight but the political lens says profit at any cost much like when we choose politics over people. As the children affected by White Clay Nebraska on both sides of the boarder watch, we place our community values on the table for all to see.

klsplenty said on: July 18, 2010, 9:32 am
Everyone from Pine Ridge should read last weeks Tim Giago’s article about the prohibition of alcohol on the Pine Ridge Rez. I think that there may be some truth in it saying that White Clay has financed the upkeep of the prohibition for years.

RV Resident said on: July 18, 2010, 8:57 am
It’s about time! For years the RCJ has been running articles portraying Whiteclay as nothing more than a source of alcohol. Thanks for finally painting a more complete picture.

The irony of Whiteclay is that it sits in what was originally a “buffer zone” created by the U.S. government to “protect” the residents of the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation from illegal whiskey peddlers operating in the area.

In 1882, President Chester A. Arthur decreed a 50-square-mile buffer zone in Nebraska south of the Pine Ridge Agency in South Dakota to protect Native Americans from the ravages of alcohol, according to the web site for the documentary film, “Battle for Whiteclay.” In 1889, and again in 1890, the U.S. Congress enacted legislation incorporating this buffer zone, known as the White Clay Extension, into the boundaries of the reservation. But in a 1904 executive order by President Theodore Roosevelt, 49 of the 50 square miles of the White Clay Extension was placed into the public domain over the protests of Lakota elders and others concerned that the need for a buffer zone still remained. Today, there is still one square mile of Pine Ridge tribal land in Nebraska near Whiteclay, the remnant of President Arthur’s buffer zone.

Except for a short time in the 1970s, the sale and possession of alcohol has always been prohibited by tribal law since the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation was created. Denver American Horse, an announced candidate for president of the Oglala Sioux Tribe, would like to change that.

American Horse said he will work to legalize alcohol sales on the reservation. The additional taxes that now go off-reservation could be used to fund much-needed alcohol treatment programs, he said.

Recent tribal administrations have opposed the legalization of alcohol sales on the reservations.

Documentary filmmaker Mark Vasina, the director and producer of “Battle for Whiteclay,” said the idea that the solution to Whiteclay is legalizing alcohol on Pine Ridge is misguided.

“It’s a red herring — to say the reservation shouldn’t be dry and then Whiteclay wouldn’t be a problem,” Vasina said. “It’s hard for white people in Nebraska to wrap their mind around the idea that white government is failing to do its job as far as crime in Whiteclay goes.”

Vic Clarke, manager of a Whiteclay grocery store, thinks ending the prohibition against alcohol sales on Pine Ridge would be the “biggest economic boon they could do.”

“Why not keep those dollars on the reservation?” he asks.

Clarke, who has been called the unofficial “mayor” of Whiteclay, has a simple, if somewhat expensive and unorthodox, proposition for doing exactly that. He thinks the Oglala Sioux Tribe should purchase Whiteclay – the entire village with all its land and buildings, lock, stock and barrel – and incorporate it back into the boundaries of the reservation. Then, the tribe would have both the benefits, and the responsibility, of alcohol sales in Whiteclay.

Prohibition doesn’t work!

It lasted 13 years in America and gave life to nationally syndicated crime, the income tax and opposition by the United States Brewers’ Association to Women’s Suffrage: the right for women to vote.

All of this is detailed in a new book by Daniel Okrent; “Last Call: The Rise and Fall of Prohibition.” The book, according to columnist George Will, “recounts how Americans abolished a widely exercised private right – and condemned the nation’s fifth largest industry – in order to make the nation more Heavenly. Then all hell broke loose.”

Prohibition was introduced and imposed on Indian reservations for several reasons. First of all unscrupulous traders and agents used alcohol to induce Indians to sell furs and other goods and ridiculously low prices, and caused Indians to sign away large tracts of lands, lands that in all probability, did not belong to them or their tribe. It was like the government found an Indian, poured alcohol down his gullet, and then said, “Here’s a treaty for land: just put your mark on it.”There was also a great fear among the settlers that their enemies, in those days the French or the British, would ply the Indians with alcohol and turn them loose on the settlers. This, in fact, did happen occasionally.

In other words, the imposition of prohibition in Indian country was hatched in the minds of white settlers and Christian missionaries who, strangely enough, were allowed to use wine during church services in the midst of the national Prohibition even though it was otherwise banned all across America.

Prohibition has been in place on most Indian reservations, particularly in the Great Plains, since the founding of the United States. Indian reservations like some of the largest, Navajo Nation and the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, have some of the highest statistics of alcoholism per capita than any other cities or communities in America. If alcohol is forbidden on these reservations then why is there rampant alcoholism present there?

There are two answers to that question: bootleggers and bordertowns. It sounds like the title for a book, doesn’t it; “Bootleggers and Bordertowns.”And there are those who say that Indians have a genetic code that causes them to be addicted to alcohol. When something is addicting, but forbidden, the users and abusers will find a way to get it. A little word like prohibition will not stop them. Alcohol is as addictive as cocaine or other drugs and yet it can be purchased legally in border towns and illegally all over the reservations from bootleggers.

There isn’t room in this column to speak about the multitude of problems that alcohol has brought to lives of the Indian people living on dry reservations. The prisons and jails in Indian country are filled with Native Americans who committed crimes while under the influence of alcohol or drugs. Murders, rapes, robberies, suicide, spousal and child abuse, and joblessness are just a few of the terrible things that happen to Indian men and women because of their addiction to alcohol or drugs.

Perhaps it is too late in her administration to do it now, but Oglala Sioux Tribal President, Theresa Two Bulls, and her council should have started an investigation into the possibilities of legalizing alcohol. At least the tribe would have had some control over the dispensing of alcohol and from the benefits of the profits. With income from the sale of liquor, new and effective alcohol and drug addiction programs could have been started and the income could have gone to the improvement of life on the reservation.

We are not saying that the sale of alcohol should be legalized, but what we are saying is that a comprehensive study should be made that addresses the pros and cons. When a referendum was held several years ago the large sums of money raised to fight against legalizing alcohol sales on Pine Ridge came from, of all people, the liquor merchants from Whiteclay, Rushville and Gordon, Neb.

Tribal council representatives were bought off right and left, or so it is said. The liquor merchants of Nebraska prevailed and it was they, with all of their bribes, who decided to keep liquor outlawed on the Pine Ridge Reservation. They did not want the competition or the loss of the millions they make every year selling alcohol to the residents of Pine Ridge. Liquor in and of itself is not evil; but it is the abuse of alcohol that presents the problems. Many years ago an alcohol counselor from Pine Ridge said much the same thing about alcohol. He said, “No one put a gun to my head and told me to drink that beer or they’d shoot me.” Clearly the choice was his to make.

Our choices are not always the right ones, prohibition or not. But the idea of legalizing the sale of alcohol on dry reservations deserves a sound and thorough study.

It is time this Council or the next Council took a serious look at prohibition.

Prohibition doesn’t work!

Tim Giago, an Oglala Lakota, is the publisher of Native Sun News. He was a Nieman Fellow at Harvard with the Class of 1990. His weekly column won the H. L. Mencken Award in 1985. His book Children Left Behind was awarded the Bronze Medal by Independent Book Publishers. Giago was inducted into the South Dakota Newspaper Hall of Fame in 2007. He can be reached at editor@nsweekly.com.

Oglala Sioux Tribe police officers set up alcohol checkpoints outside Whiteclay on Thursday, July 1 but reports that alcohol being taken to Pine Ridge Indian Reservation was confiscated were disputed by tribal officials.

The official numbers on what the OST called a “safety checkpoint” and what the Strongheart Civil Rights group calls a “blockade” were: 110 vehicles stopped and 14 citations issues: seven for seat-belt violations and seven for driving without a valid license. There were no alcoholic beverages confiscated, according to OST Police Chief Everett Little Whiteman and his staff.

“Not even a can of beer,” Lt. Richard Greenwald said.

Strongheart founder Duane Martin Sr. disputed those statistics, saying that he was told 52 cases of beer were confiscated during the morning blockade between Whiteclay, where last year, four small beer stores collectively sold about 4.6 million cans of beer to residents on the Pine Ridge reservation, where alcohol is prohibited.

Martin said Friday that police officials were trying to “sabotage” the blockade event by under-reporting the amount of alcohol found. “I was there; the police chief wasn’t there,” he said.

“The original report that no alcoholic beverages were confiscated by the officers manning the checkpoint still stands,” Little Whiteman said by e-mail. “Lt. Greenwald made that report to Captain (Ron) Duke.”

Greenwald said officers used the safety checkpoints to talk to motorists about seat-belt safety. He said Martin’s numbers on beer confiscations were “a complete lie” and called any assertion that confiscated beer disappeared “ridiculous.”

WHITE CLAY, Neb. –– They will be back like a bad hangover.

And, they’ll be setting up what has become known as the Whiteclay Blockade – a blockade that serves as a one-day barrier to what amounts to the smuggling of alcohol – beer, mostly – onto the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation.

“Yes, we’ll be there,” said Duane Martin Jr., one of the blockade’s founders in 1999. Martin said the blockade is scheduled to begin about 10 a.m. Thursday, July 1, just inside the South Dakota-Nebraska state line, which also serves as the reservation’s long-disputed southern boundary.

“It’ll last until the cops (Oglala Sioux Tribe’s law enforcement personnel) show up to take over,” said Martin, who has been joined over the years by such Indian activists as Russell Means and Frank LaMere.

“We have to start somewhere,” said Martin. “It is a proven fact the enemy – alcohol and drugs – is still out there.”

Designed to intercept alcohol – and drugs – coming onto the “dry” reservation from Whiteclay, which is about two miles from downtown Pine Ridge, the reservation’s largest city, the blockade involves a continuing appeal from members of the Strong Heart Society to establish official “weekly sobriety checks” along the roadway.

Whiteclay, an unincorporated village with a population of only 14, is about 200 feet from the disputed border and, activists insist, remains part of what is referred to as the White Clay Extension, a buffer zone of land first established in 1882 by then-President Chester A. Arthur.

It started out as a 50-square-mile buffer zone in Nebraska, south of and adjacent to the reservation, but was reduced by 49 square miles in 1904 by then-President Theodore Roosevelt. Initially, the White Clay Extension was set up at the urging of the U.S. Indian Agent and the Oglala Lakota elders “for the protection of reservations residents from illegal whiskey peddlers operating” in the area.

In 1889 and again in 1890, Congress enacted legislation “incorporating this buffer zone, known as the White Clay Extension, into the boundaries of the reservation,” according to a study guide published by Nebraska Wesleyan University.

“We are also still trying to regain the land,” said Martin, founder of Strong Heart Society. “It belongs to the Lakota. Elders and activists protested once they learned that it was created as part of the reservation to protect Indians against alcohol until the threat disappeared.”

The threat hasn’t disappeared, according to Martin. In fact, it’s increased, he said.

Strong Heart Society sets the checkpoint to intercept the illegal cross-border traffic smuggling contraband onto the reservation, where the transport, possession and drinking of alcohol is prohibited – and has been since its creation in the late 1800s.

Strong Heart Society first set up the blockade in 1999 – the last year of the 20th century and will be back for the 11th blockade of White Clay on July 1, 2010, according to Martin, whose nonprofit organization is known to provide reservation residents with food, clothing and furniture several times each year.

“We’ll be there again – all day – on the Fourth of July, stopping vehicles we suspect are carrying beer onto the reservation; drugs, too,” said Martin, a member of the American Indian Movement who lives near Sharpes Corner.

Whiteclay, which today sports four off-sale beer retailers – Arrowhead Inn, State Line Liquors, Mike’s Pioneer and Jumping Eagle Inn – with “the help of 555 Christian Ministries,” operated by the Rev. Bruce Bonflour in what was the old H&M Grocery Store.

“He knew White Clay has been a death trap,” said Martin. “He opened a soup kitchen there, saying that it gives our people a place to eat. At first, there were only seven to 10 people. Bonflour said he was working to sober up our drunks.”

“God forbid a non-Indian ever dies in White Clay. That will shut that place down,” Martin said. “But when it’s an Indian, they say: ‘Oh, they’re just a bunch of drunken Indians anyway.”

Martin said the drunks in White Clay are not homeless, and they don’t need an excuse to be in White Clay. Martin said now “you can see anywhere from 25 to 100 people there – young people, young couples with children, elders and pregnant women in what used to be a super Christian academy.”

“His (Bonflour’s) real purpose is to gain monetary profits from Lakota people,” Martin said.

“Reservation gangs go there to settle their differences,” said Martin, who also told Native Sun News that he had served liquor retailers with federal complaints for the illegal sales of alcohol to Pine Ridge residents.

“They are not homeless,” said Martin, indicating that most of the drinkers could go easily go home, but the food keeps them. “My people are hungry. People don’t understand hungry. Once they eat, the beer keeps them” in White Clay.

“What do we have to do? He’s got the innocent, the poor people and the hungry,” said Martin, showing some weariness from the 10-year sobriety battle. “We have to start banging back.”

Martin said he hopes the reservation’s police force shows up to help with the blockade.

“Last year, we got cooperation from Pine Ridge (cops),” Martin said, noting that Tribal Police Chief Everette Little White Man, Capt. Ron Duke and Lt. Alex Morgan participated.

“We stop cars and ask about alcohol,” he said. “If they have it, we tell law enforcement. We confiscate it, and any drugs we find. We have no arrest authority.”

Martin said it always is a “test” for his blockade volunteers – all Strong Heart Society members.

“They throw beer cans at us and garbage,” he said.

Oglala Sioux Tribe police officers set up alcohol checkpoints outside Whiteclay, Neb., on Thursday and confiscated 52 cases of beer that were being transported to Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, according to a blockade organizer.

“We had a tremendous blockade today,” said anti-alcohol activist Duane Martin Sr., whose Strongheart Civil Rights group has organized the annual event for 11 years [sic; since 2006] with varying degrees of success.

Tribal officers participated in the blockade and Police Chief Everett Little Whiteman said the event took place without any problems. He did not have official numbers late Thursday afternoon of citations issued or alcohol confiscated. Those statistics will be released today, he said.

At the Jumping Eagle Inn, business was slow during the blockade. Jumping Eagle is one of the four Whiteclay beer stores that collectively sold 4.6 million cans of beer in 2009, most of it to residents of the Pine Ridge reservation, where alcohol is prohibited by tribal law.

About 40 people, including children and a Canadian representative from the League of Indigenous Nations, participated in the blockade at the state line between Nebraska and South Dakota to protest the sale of alcohol less than 2 miles [sic] from the reservation border, Martin said.

“You could see cars turning back, looking for another way,” he said. Martin said he opposes legalizing the sale of alcohol on the reservation. “I would be the first one to step up and stop that kind of a movement,” he said. “It’s a new breed of cancer.”

He said he believes the blockades are beginning to yield results by increasing education, awareness and cooperation with law enforcement authorities. “It’s going to continue to get better.”