When charity turkey raffles got caught in Prohibition's gambling crackdown
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A century ago this week, Salt Lake City law enforcement promised a trip to the hoosegow if any charity, church, fraternal club or saloon strayed into Utah's darkest corner of vice: Turkey raffles.
- This is Old News, where we scan the police blotter of Utah's past.
Catch up quick: Turkey raffles had been happening around Thanksgiving for decades, with local mentions dating back to 1879 in the taverns of Ogden (of course).
- By 1897, turkey raffles were "rampant" in SLC's watering holes. The next year Park City police blitzed raffle promoters — but waived fines because some of the turkeys probably went to poor people.
The big picture: A turkey raffle turned a humdrum dice game into a bar brawl in Park City.
- In Minnesota, one ended in murder. In Maine, an excited player knocked over a candle and started a fire that burned off folks' eyebrows.
Zoom in: Salt Lake first tried banning the raffles in 1912, a year after the Humane Society reported live turkeys displayed in windows for days without food or water and being battered against the walls or pulled apart by sore losers.
- A man was arrested for "cruelty to bird" after he grabbed his prize turkey by the neck and swung it around over his head.
Reality check: The bigger issue was that police were getting complaints from merchants that the raffles were cutting into their Thanksgiving turkey sales.
The intrigue: During Prohibition, when turkey raffles had become nonprofit fundraisers, gambling enforcement was high-priority.
- A Salt Lake Elks Lodge baffled the city council in 1920 with the legal questions around raffling turkeys to support its Christmas charity.
The bottom line: On Nov. 18, 1925, the police commissioner stopped the gravy train.
That escalated quickly: By 1929, previously fun Ogden was so anti-gambling that police arrested a city councilman at a dance, for raffling a radio.
- The Weber County attorney said it was "merely the first step in abolishing all such forms of gambling including punchcards, slot machines, turkey raffles and church, ward and charity bazaars."