Today's Looking Back can be found here.

I'm sure you've probably noticed by now, but there isn't a leap day tomorrow. It's just 28 days and done for February, and we move right on into March, home of Madness and the Iditarod. 1960 had a leap day, however, and the top story from the February 29, 1960 News-Miner is printed below:

House Hears of Loss to Licensed Industry

JUNEAU, Feb. 29 (AP) — The picture of Alaska as a land where bootleg whisky sells for $12 a quart while licensed beverage dealers lose money was painted by witnesses before the House Commerce and Labor Committee Saturday.

Spokesmen for the Alaska Licensed Beverage Assn. told the committee the present liquor system could lead to numerous evils. The association has opposed the present three-man Alcoholic Beverage Control Board and the board's current uniform closing hour regulation.

The ALBA is backing a bill to enlarge the board of five members and to end regulation of closing hours outside incorporated limits.

Joseph Walsh of Anchorage, secretary of ALBA, told the committee the ALBA represented more than 1,000 license beverage operators in the state. He contended the liquor industry was the largest tax paying industry in Alaska.

Hits Board

Walsh said the present board failed to represent all Alaska since its members are all from the Juneau area. He said the bill proposed to represent all geographical areas with the five-member board.

Walsh testified some operators are losing heavily because of the uniform hours regulation which prevents sale of alcoholic beverages after 3 a.m. on weekdays and 4 a.m. Sundays and holidays.

The regulation, Walsh said, does not prevent people from buying liquor.

"People worry about the policing problem in enforcing closing hours. Ladies and gentlement, why don't we start policing the bootleggers?" Walsh asked.

An Anchorage package store operator, Byron Gillam, said his sales of case lots of pints and half pints of liquor had climbed sharply since the new hours have been in effect.

A legislator asked Gillam if he felt the smaller bottles of liquor were being used in after hours bootlegging operations.

Gillam said he had "No idea, but I would be a fool if I didn't believe that some are going into bottle sales of some kind. Very few customers would drink 24 pints themselves."

Sees Hardships

Gillam and Dick Platt, operator of a resort area establishment at Big Lake, told of economic hardship imposed on road houses by the new hours. Gillam said the board rule requiring liquor dispensing establishments to remain closed until 2 a.m. on Sundays was hitting the road houses hardest.

He described the road houses 'as safety houses up and down the highways which tourists are going into."

Platt said his own business at Big Lake was "primarily a weekend operation." He told of one Sunday since the hours were imposed when half pints of whiskey were being sold at Big Lake for $2.50 by a bootlegger.

While the bootlegger was operating, Platt explained, he took in $28.30 from the sale of coffee. His net take from liquor sales when they began at 2 p.m., Platt added, was $53.

Sales Drop

"Before the new regulations went in," Platt concluded, "I used to make $475 to $550 from bar sales on a typical Sunday."

The beverage association president, L. Donal Pruhs of Fairbanks, said his membership represents about half the licensed dealers in the state. More would belong he explained, but with lost revenues from the new closing hours, fewer can afford the $100 membership fee.

Pruhs said it was his fear that the three-man board, holding most of its hearings in Juneau, was too isolated from the problems of other areas around the state and "graft will inevitably creep in."

"Two people," Pruhs said, "are easier to convince than three of five."

Pruhs said board members might be tempted to "sell" a revoked license on a bribe from an unscrupulous applicant.

"A license at Clear (Air Force Station) would be worth from $15,000 to $20,000," Pruhs told the legislators.