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Other campgrounds,
such as the more modest Free Spirit, are even closer.
Fronted by Debra
White Plume, the Inter-Tribal Coalition to Defend Bear Butte has been
the most visible opposition group. It is staging the monthlong camp
in protest of the continued development of bars near Bear Butte,
which the group says will be visible and audible from the summit,
where many go to pray.
Standing on the
outskirts of a large tent set up as a gathering place for those
camped in protest at the base of Bear Butte, White Plume described
what led her to help organize the protests.
"For me,"
said White Plume, whose husband is Oglala Sioux Tribe President Alex
White Plume, "it was the idea that some person was going to have
a very disrespectful business called Sacred Ground."
Jay Allen, owner
of the Broken Spoke Saloon in downtown Sturgis, has become the focus
of much of the anger, at least in part because of that ill-fated
original name for what has since become the Sturgis County Line, a
mammoth red structure and campground two miles north of Bear Butte.
County approval
Allen's bar is not
the closest development to Bear Butte, and it might not prove to be
the loudest. But in approving Allen's liquor license, the Meade
County Commission angered the various groups united to protest the
rally's continued expansion.
But county
commissioner Curtis Nupen said he and the other commissioners could
consider only two factors: the character of the applicant and the
location. On the first requirement, Nupen said, the police
investigated Allen's existing Sturgis bar, the Broken Spoke, and
found a clean record.
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