While offices in the state capital emptied out early Thursday in anticipation of New Year's Eve and an approaching snow storm, bars in downtown Augusta and nearby Hallowell were preparing for the busiest night of the year.

Each bar in Augusta has its own clientele. One downtown bar  caters to working class drinkers, and offers a gritty, redneck atmosphere. By six o'clock on New Year's Eve, alcoholics, looking ragged and forlorn, were already bellying up to the bar for a night of hard drinking. Many had cashed their state-issued disability checks earlier in the day. Later in the evening, young professionals poured into another bar on the other side of town, a bar with a more exotic, foreign look. Young people in search of a wild time flocked to a popular downtown bar where the liquor is cheap and plentiful. At $2 a drink, this bar sells so much alcohol that young people often pass out on the way home, and are sent to emergency rooms to have their stomachs pumped. Police calls to the bar are frequent.

Legislators, lobbyists, and state workers do their drinking in the nearby town of Hallowell.  The picturesque town of Hallowell was once a model of sober Maine industry. A century ago, Hallowell was entirely self-sufficient. The town manufactured its own clothes and shoes, and forged its own iron goods. The town was also home to meticulous craftsmen who made the granite sculptures for some of our nation's most magnificent structures.  Now Hallowell is the least typical town in Maine.

The story of Hallowell's moral downfall is revealed by its many nicknames. Locals call the town "The Little Easy" "New Orleans on the Kennebec" or "New Orleans with Snow." Outsiders call the town "The Greenwich Village of Maine" or "The Gay Mecca."  The town is proud of that last nickname, and many cars parked along Main Street sport a small black and white bumper sticker which simply says "Mecca."

Hallowell is called the New Orleans of Maine because of the proliferation of bars and taverns. It is in essence, a watering-hole for Augusta.  One enters Hallowell by driving past Pine State Trading, a gargantuan complex of warehouses which distributes liquor to 364 agency liquor stores in the state.  As a suburb of Augusta, Hallowell is home to many gay rights activists and liberal lobbyists who spill over from the Baldacci administration. Stores in town put out an occasional rainbow flag, or the blue and orange banner of the Human Rights Campaign, the nation's largest homosexual rights organization. In spring and summer, "gay" couples promenade along the railtrail which follows the Kennebec River back to Augusta. More than any town in Maine, the small town of Hallowell, just next to the state capital, has mainstreamed the homosexual lifestyle. 

Hallowell's other distinguishing feature is the prevalence of the booze trade. Within a three block stretch along Main Street, there are two wine stores, three taverns, and a total of ten businesses that sell alcohol. Stroll through the town on a summer evening, and you will catch the odor of wine and whiskey as tavern patrons make their way back to their Volvos and Saabs for the trip home to Augusta. Stroll through the town on Sunday morning, and your nose will be assaulted by the smell of stale beer.

By now, some readers think this is an unfair picture of Hallowell. But the booze trade is a contemptible activity - contemptible because it destroys innumerable human lives for the sake of a quick dollar.  It is a tawdry, predatory trade run by men without scruples; and it is all the more deplorable when it is endorsed and cheered on by those who make our laws.
 
Not long ago, a Portland honor roll student was killed in a drunk-driving accident. In December, a young man froze to death on Mount Desert Island after downing a bottle of vodka with friends. In what is perhaps the most tragic story,  a Maine native faces twenty years in prison for running over and killing a young camp counselor from Washington State, Corrie Lazar.

This is why the booze trade has to stop; and that is why it has no business being located near our state capital. 

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