The Daily Alaska empire., 1949-03-08
LIQUOR BILL AMENDMENT
 MOVE FAILS
Survives Hectic Night in Which Iris Room Be-
 comes Issue

| comes Issue The second House liquor control bill of the legislative session-after the first died by indefinite post ponement-escaped similar fate last night, and survived with all its alcoholic vigor to head the House calendar today.
 The House had time to reject only one proposed amendment to it after opening it for discussion again shortly before neon A proposal by Rep. Marcus Jensen to leave the re- sponsibility for issuing liquor li- censes with district judges instead of turning it over to the Court Clerk was beaten on a 10 to II vote.
 Jensen argued that the court would be likely to keep a tighter rein on the licensing situation. Rep. Warren Taylor, who introduced the bill, responded that the jud ge doesn't see one applicant in 500' and that the present law makes it mandatory for him to issue license if the application is in order.
 The bill was before the House again this afternoon. The House scheduled its second straight night session for 730.
 Session Last Night
 At last nights House session, Rep. Glen Franklin, Fairbanks Demo- crat, moved to kill the liquor bill promptly by indefinite postpone ment. Later he withdrew the mo- tion to allow Atty. Gen. Ralph Riv- CTS to testify on the bill as a mea- sure which he said was actually aimed at tightening liquor law en- forcement by making the statute more practicable.
 Rivers declared the bill was an attempt to tighten liquor law en- forcement and where I cut down on apparently stringent terms of the present law, it leaves way for more practical enforcement"
 Rivers added: This is my last attempt in office to improve the llquor enforcement law"
 FurOr Created
 But before the evening was over, the actual contents of the bill were almost taking a back seat alongside of the furor over its having been laheled "the Iris Room Bill" in some Of the news reports.
 Rep. Warren Taylor, who intro ruced the bill, took violent excep- duced the bill, took violent excep- ton to the label. He branded it misnomer and accused both Report CT Bob DeArmond and Editor Sid Charles of the Ketchikan News of falsehoods in news and editorial reports on the bill.
 An attempt was even made by Rep. Frank Angerman at the end of the evening to get DeArmond on the stand DeArmond declined the invitation, and commented later that he was willing to let Rivers testimony stand as the defense for his Iris Room" label.
 Both Rivers and Taylor disputed press reports that the bill was a liberalization Of the present law. Both explained that reports the bill would remove the ban against beer and wine sale on election day were erroneous.
 Misinterpretation While Taylor labeled that inter- pretation as one of what he called "a mess of lies" about the bills contents, other legislators observed ithat it was readily understandable how the misinterpretation occurred. In legislative bills, any provisions of the law to be dropped are placed in parenthesis. In the bills section against sale of intoxicating liquor on election day, the text included EXCLUDING BEER AND WINE) That meant the including beer and wine" was to be dropped from that section.
 However, Rivers and Taylor ex- plained that both beer and wine are listed as intoxicants in another section of the existing law, which does not appear in the new bill. Therefore, said Rivers, the striking of the beer and wine" reference was just one of legal procedure ito clean up the language of the bill.' It was just to eliminate unnecessary verbiage, and shouldn't have been
 taken seriously.
 To Clerks, Not Judges ] One major change proposed by the bill would put liquor licensing in the hands of District Court clerks instead of judges.