Christy Tengs Fowler wants to be done with the Pioneer Bar and Bamboo Room. Many people think the Haines Borough shouldn’t be awarding grants to nonprofits using tax dollars.
Here’s an idea. A generous benefactor or the Haines Borough buys the bar-restaurant and gives it to an existing or new nonprofit. That nonprofit takes over the business, with proceeds after expenses benefiting other local nonprofits.
Could this be a pairing? People laughed at Reese’s for mixing peanut butter and chocolate. Who’s laughing now?
The bar needn’t be the Pioneer and the borough needn’t be the purchaser. But the idea of a nonprofit bar benefiting nonprofits is worth considering.
It’s a win-win. The borough gets out of the business of funding nonprofits. And we all get to drink and dance and eat to the success of these worthwhile, scrappy groups that do so much for our community.
Crazy idea? It’s been done before. In the Yukon, the municipality of Dawson City operates Diamond-Tooth Gertie’s casino. Proceeds pay for Dawson’s tourism department. I’m aware of a bar in Milwaukee, Wisc. that was owned by the neighborhood association of the neighborhood that surrounded it. Bar proceeds paid for neighborhood improvements.
Let’s face it, booze is good business and that’s not likely to change anytime soon. But the town’s drinking habits are changing. Bars here and elsewhere were once men’s clubs with the sole purpose of getting lit up in a hurry.
It’s not that way anymore. The success of the microbrewery and distillery prove that people are looking for new drinks, new surroundings, and new things to do at bars. Open mike, trivia and karaoke didn’t exist here 20 years ago. Now they’re main attractions.
Patrons also want to support businesses they like, and what’s not to like about a place whose proceeds go back into the community to support outfits like the state fair, animal rescue kennel or arts council?
Booze shouldn’t be the only draw. There should be food and live music and board games and birthday parties. The Pioneer/Bamboo is a good model because the place is already something of an adult community center and museum of town history, circa 1955. The place is rich in local character and history, which are attractions.
I can hear more pious types objecting to linking vice to community development. But guess what? Alcohol is legal. It may not be the most constructive way to spend one’s time, but it’s a social activity and getting people of different stripes together to socialize might smooth out some wrinkles in this town.
Bars and coffeehouses historically were meeting places, where people gathered to talk and hear new the news and to discuss new ideas for old problems. Cities, not nations or rural areas, led the way in the European Renaissance because smart people congregated in them, building ideas that became the Enlightenment.
Cities all over the world still serve this purpose, of putting all the brains together in one place, and by doing so, by pushing the envelope of progress.
In rural Alaska we tend to spread out, to get away from each other for peace, solace, or whatever. But solitude doesn’t solve many problems. The stereotype of an inventor, toiling away in his lonely workshop, is mostly myth.
Ideas and progress are built by people working together.
So we could consider our adult community center also as a think tank, with alcohol serving as social lubricant. At the same time, we’d be raising money for the groups that already are doing important community work.
Salut!