Second liquor license approved for Bear Butte bar

Nick Tilsen, at right behind the podium, directs a question to Gary Lippold, seated on the left, during Tuesday’s Meade County Commission meeting. When a commissioner tried to stop Tilsen from talking, he responded, “We’re going to talk, and you’re going to listen,” and continued. (Don Polovich, Journal staff)
From the Rapic City Journal.

Groups vow protests during motorcycle rally

STURGIS — American Indian groups vowed Tuesday to stage daily demonstrations in Sturgis during the 2006 motorcycle rally to protest the event’s continuing eastward expansion toward Bear Butte, a sacred site to a number of tribes.

However, Carter Camp of the Intertribal Coalition to Defend Bear Butte and Jay Red Hawk of the Bear Butte International Alliance both emphasized Tuesday that the demonstrations will be peaceful.

In addition to the rally week protests, the groups are organizing a large, summerlong gathering at Bear Butte. It could draw as many as 10,000 people, Camp said.

Camp said the groups will ask bikers to voluntarily honor a buffer zone around Bear Butte, staying away from the rally campgrounds, saloons and concert venues east of Fort Meade Veteran’s Affairs Hospital. He believes some bikers will side with the groups.

“We’re not trying to shut down the rally,” Camp said. “We know the rally has an economic impact on the state; we just want a buffer around Bear Butte.”

The vow to protest came amid a tense, sometimes confrontational meeting of the Meade County Commission on Tuesday morning in Sturgis.

Despite pleas from the crowd, commissioners voted 5-0 to approve a liquor license for Gary Lippold’s new concert venue south of Bear Butte, Rock’n the Rally at Glencoe CampResort. full article

Over the past few months, native organizers have been mobilizing their communities, in the Plains region and western states, to travel to South Dakota in the summer. The hope was that Meade County would deny these liquor licenses. Now that they have approved them, the defense of Bear Butte has taken on even more of an urgency.