LINCOLN — The latest effort to end alcohol-related suffering on a South Dakota Indian reservation targets the supply chain that sells nearly 5 million cans of beer annually in the Nebraska border town of Whiteclay.
The Oglala Sioux Tribe of South Dakota filed a federal lawsuit Thursday in Nebraska naming as defendants the four off-sale beer stores in Whiteclay, four western Nebraska beer distributors and five of the world's largest brewers.
The businesses sell the equivalent of 13,000 cans of beer and malt liquor per day in the village of 12 people, the Nebraska Liquor Control Commission confirms. Whiteclay is just outside the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation. Alcohol is banned on the reservation and there are no public places to consume it legally in Whiteclay, said Omaha attorney Tom White, a former state senator who represents the tribe.
Those profiting from beer sales know they are contributing to the illegal use of their product, White argued Thursday during a press conference at the State Capitol.
“They are helping people violate the law,” he said. “This lawsuit is about holding them responsible and stopping the devastation of an entire people and culture.”
The lawsuit names Anheuser-Busch InBev Worldwide, SAB Miller, Molson Coors Brewing Co., MillerCoors LLC and Pabst Brewing Co., among others.
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The World-Herald contacted or left messages with all 13 defendants. They either declined to comment or did not immediately respond, although several said they had not yet been served with legal papers or read the lawsuit.
The lawsuit was brought after two or three years of research with the help Nebraskans for Peace, a social activism group that has long worked to stanch the flow of alcohol from Whiteclay. The Oglala Sioux Tribal Council voted unanimously to hire White's firm to file the claim in U.S. District Court in Lincoln.
“We can now begin to address the terrible harm to the Lakota people caused by Whiteclay alcohol sales,” said Tom Poor Bear, vice president of the tribe and the brother of two men found slain in 1999 just outside of Whiteclay. Poor Bear led marches and protests in the wake of the unsolved killings focused attention on the alcohol problem.
Although the lawsuit does not specify monetary damages, White offered $500 million as a conservative estimate of what alcoholism costs the tribe.
He listed a litany of alcohol-related problems on the 40,000-person reservation.
For example, he said 85 percent of families are directly affected by alcoholism and one-fourth of babies suffer from fetal-alcohol disorders. What's more, life expectancy on the reservation is about 25 years lower than for the average American, and 90 percent of reservation arrests are alcohol-related.
“Because it's not our children — it's Native Americans — we have tolerated that kind of human carnage for decades,” he said.
His legal argument hinges on Whiteclay's proximity to the dry reservation and the massive quantities of beer sold by its four liquor license holders. There's little doubt that the vast majority of the beer ends up on the reservation, where it often is illegally resold, White said.
The makers, distributors and retailers of the beer are essentially aiding and abetting bootlegging and other illegal activity, he said.
White said his legal argument has never been used by tribes against the alcohol industry, but he likened it to the landmark claims against tobacco firms.
Past efforts to address Whiteclay, known as the “skid row of the Plains,” involved cooperative law enforcement operations and roadblocks that tried to stop alcohol from being smuggled onto the reservation.
Gov. Dave Heineman, former Gov. Mike Johanns and Attorney General Jon Bruning all have traveled there in search of solutions. Meanwhile, activists have pressured the Nebraska Liquor Control Commission to revoke licenses of Whiteclay retailers.
Yet the problems persist.
White said that if the lawsuit produces a substantial monetary judgment or settlement for the tribe, the money could be used to bolster woefully inadequate alcohol treatment on the reservation. Or perhaps it could help address the underlying issues of poverty and despair that lead to drinking.
Judi gaiashkibos, director of the Nebraska Commission on Indian Affairs, applauded the suit as a possible response to what she called “economic racism.”
“People have know for so long this was going on and looked the other way because it was Indian people,” she said.
Contact the writer:
402-473-9587, joe.duggan@owh.com
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