<html><head><meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"></head><body dir="auto"><div><span></span></div><div><meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"><div><span></span></div> <div><meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"><div><span></span></div><div><meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"><div>Courtesy of today's (October 6, 2014) Spokesman-Review.</div><div><br></div><div>-------------------------------------</div><div><h1 style="margin: 0px 0px 10px; clear: both; -webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%; line-height: 1.2; font-size: 28px; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; color: rgb(17, 17, 17);">Then and Now: The New Washington Hotel</h1><p style="margin-bottom: 21px; overflow: visible !important;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Long before the war on drugs, there was Prohibition, starting in 1920. Depending on who’s telling the story, serving liquor in Spokane was either ubiquitous and hardly questioned, or the law was enforced with a vengeance.</span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 21px; overflow: visible !important;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Trent Alley, between Washington and Stevens streets, was lined with speakeasy bars. But local newspapers were filled with lists of scofflaws who had sold liquor, and the courts were jammed with defendants who had turned to bootlegging to make a buck.</span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 21px; overflow: visible !important;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Case in point: the New Washington Hotel. The ground floor held retail establishments, and the two upper floors of the modest 1901 building at Washington and First offered a cheap place to live for downtown laborers in the 1920s and early 1930s. The Spokane police “dry squad” made several raids and stings there in 1929 and 1930 and arrested several people, some of whom were Greek immigrants, for selling liquor. Usually they would find a few bottles stashed in a closet or suitcase in one of the rooms.</span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 21px; overflow: visible !important;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">One raid turned up a room where someone had clearly been filling pint liquor bottles with clear moonshine using a funnel. And they were adding burnt sugar to the raw alcohol to color it like whiskey. Those bottles sold for $2 on the street.</span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 21px; overflow: visible !important;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Hotel manager Bill Brumas, born Vasilias Athanasios in Greece, was charged with being a “jointist,” running a place that sold alcohol. After his conviction, he appealed, saying the cops only found liquor in private rooms, not in his possession. Cops said the rooms were listed as rented under fictitious names and Brumas had to know what was going on. The conviction was overturned.</span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 21px; overflow: visible !important;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">In previous raids, the hotel’s owners, Nicolas, James and Joe Arvas, had been convicted of being jointists and sent to jail. In March 1933, a federal judge ordered the New Washington Hotel and several other low-rent hotels to be padlocked for one year for being a public nuisance. In December of that year, the 21st Amendment was ratified, repealing the 18th Amendment and ending Prohibition. In the 1940s, the building became the Como Apartments. The building at 401 W. First Ave. is now divided into condominiums.</span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 21px; overflow: visible !important;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">--------------------</span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 21px; overflow: visible !important;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">1927: The new Washington Hotel is pictured on the southwest corner of First and Washington. It was built in 1901 and was known for illegal liquor sales during Prohibition.</span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 21px; overflow: visible !important;"><img src="cid:8AD64473-B321-46D5-A9CB-096922911BD0" alt="image1.jpeg" id="8AD64473-B321-46D5-A9CB-096922911BD0"></p><p style="margin-bottom: 21px; overflow: visible !important;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">--------------------</span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 21px; overflow: visible !important;">Present day: The 401 Condos, with street-level retail shops, now occupy the building.</p><p style="margin-bottom: 21px; overflow: visible !important;"><img src="cid:03ABAB14-AF8A-4C8D-B2EF-B3490E848A4A" alt="image1.jpeg" id="03ABAB14-AF8A-4C8D-B2EF-B3490E848A4A"></p></div><div>-------------------------------------<br><br><div><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Seeya 'round town, Moscow, because . . .</span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><br></span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">"Moscow Cares" (the most fun you can have with your pants on)</span></div><div><a href="http://www.moscowcares.com/" style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><font color="#000000">http://www.MoscowCares.com</font></a></div><div><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"> </span></div><div><div><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Tom Hansen</span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Moscow, Idaho</span></div></div><div> </div></div></div></div></div></body></html>