by Mordecai Specktor
Most liquor stores in south Minneapolis have responded positively to
complaints by outraged Native Americans and stopped selling the notorious
Crazy Horse malt liquor, but the product is still legally available at retail
outlets in Minnesota.
Although the 1994 Minnesota Legislature banned the product, the law is
being challenged by Hornell Brewing Co., the Brooklyn-based owner of the
brand name, and G. Heileman, the LaCrosse, Wisconsin brewer that actually
produces the booze under contract to Hornell.
Until a final determination is made on the Hornell/Heileman appeal, the
big 40-ounce malt liquor bottles bearing the name of the famous Oglala
Lakota spiritual leader can still legally sit on store shelves.
The legal showdown comes April 19, when state administrative law
judge Allen E. Giles will hear arguments by Hornell challenging the order
by the state Department of Public Safety (DPS) liquor control division to
stop selling their malt liquor in Minnesota.
The state agency ordered Hornell/Heileman and Barton Beers, Ltd. of
Chicago -- brewer of Chief Oshkosh beer, which is named after the early
19th century leader of the Menominee nation -- to stop selling their products
as of August 1, 1994.
The order from the state liquor control agency reflected the intent of the
1994 law revoking approval of "brand label registration" for any malt liquor
that "states or implies in a false or misleading manner a connection with an
actual living or dead American Indian leader."
The Minnesota Office of the Attorney General will defend the state
liquor control agency's order to ban Crazy Horse malt liquor. They will be
joined by attorneys representing the Crazy Horse estate, which the
administrative law judge has allowed to intervene in the case.
The petition to intervene in the case presented by the estate's attorney,
Bob Gough from Rosebud, So. Dakota, asserts that the "use of the name
Crazy Horse violates the memory of their ancestor . . . Crazy Horse was
vehemently opposed to the use of alcohol by his people." Putting the
spiritual leader's name on the malt liquor bottles is a "misrepresentation of
Crazy Horse and the principles for which he stood."
Lawrence Fox, an attorney with McDermott, Will & Emery in New
York, will represent Hornell and Heileman at the administrative hearing. He
argues that the state statute is an "effort to impair the 1st amendment
rights"
of his clients.
(During a preliminary hearing in the Hornell appeal last October, Giles
told attorneys that he would not consider constitutional arguments. He said
the administrative hearing will concern only arguments about the facts of
the beer ban as they apply to state law.)
"The [Minnesota law banning Crazy Horse malt liquor] was designed for
one purpose and one purpose only, and that was to eliminate this one brand
from the market because its name was deemed to be offensive," Fox said.
"That is an unfortunate and improper use of government authority -- to
regulate what is or is not perceived to be politically correct or offensive
speech."
Attorney Fox even argues that his clients' product doesn't actually refer
to the historical personage Tashunke Witko, a.k.a., Crazy Horse.
"We didn't allege that [Crazy Horse malt liquor] has been endorsed by
Mr. Crazy Horse's heirs, or that this, in fact, relates to Crazy Horse the
individual, who is the famous Oglala chieftain," Fox stated during a
telephone interview last fall.
But the text on the back label of the malt liquor bottle seems to refer to a
real life "Mr. Crazy Horse."
The bottle label tells of the "Black Hills of Dakota . . . home of Proud
Indian Nations. A land where imagination conjures up images of blue clad
Pony Soldiers and magnificent Native American Warriors . . . where wailful
winds whisper of Sitting Bull, Crazy Horse and Custer."
Also, a Dec. 4, 1992 affidavit from one of the owners of Hornell
Brewing Co. indicates that the beer bottle refers to the revered Lakota
leader.
In a sworn statement, Domenic (Don) Vultaggio, an owner of Ferolito,
Vultaggio & Sons, Inc. which owns Hornell, states that "in selecting the
name Crazy Horse, Hornell at no time intended to offend or insult Native
Americans. Rather . . . we selected the name to celebrate a great Native
American chieftain as part of our introduction of a line of beers that
commemorate the American West and its legends."
Vultaggio tried to back away from this statement during a March 14
interview for a deposition in St. Paul.
Vultaggio said "he was from Brooklyn and the only thing he knew about
Indians was what he saw . . . out of the movies," recounted Bob Gough. He
specifically mentioned They Died With Their Boots On, one of the
numerous Hollywood accounts of the ill-fated attack in 1876 by Gen.
George Armstrong Custer (played by Erroll Flynn) on a large Indian
encampment on the Little Big Horn River.
Vultaggio said that the language in the affidavit about celebrating a great
Native American chieftain "was something put in there by lawyers,"
according to Gough, who intends to use the 1992 affidavit in the upcoming
administrative law hearing.
The campaign against Crazy Horse malt liquor gained further publicity
with a prominent article in the Dec. 4, 1994 Boston Globe. The story
featured Seth Big Crow from Upper Cut Meat on the Rosebud reservation in
So. Dakota. He is a grandson of Crazy Horse -- in the Lakota way of kinship
-- and the court-appointed executor of the estate.
According to the article, descendants of the Oglala Lakota chief have
abided by a vow not to identify themselves as family members -- both to
honor their descendant and to protect themselves from his enemies. Big
Crow said that when he was 12 years old his grandfather told him about his
famous ancestor
''But he told me never to speak of it to any outsiders. I never did," Big
Crow told the newspaper.
For most of his life Big Crow kept his vow -- not even telling his wife.
But when Crazy Horse malt liquor came on the market in 1992, Big Crow
resolved to reveal his relationship to Crazy Horse in order to fight the
brewers who had sullied his grandfather's name.
"I hope he would understand why I broke my silence,'' Big Crow stated.
He will testify on behalf of the heirs of Crazy Horse at the administrative
law hearing on April 19.
* * * * * *
The Boston Globe story also provides some interesting background on
the previous exploits of Hornell owners Don Vultaggio and John Ferolito:
The pair "first made national headlines with a beer they introduced in
1986 called Midnight Dragon. Posters distributed to Dragon wholesalers
featured a woman in a red dress, stockings and a garter sipping the product
through a straw with the caption: 'I could suck this all night.'
"Women's groups protested. Ferolito defended the poster by saying
that few women drink malt liquor. 'Real men like sex and sex sells beer,' he
told the Wall Street Journal at the time."
The Midnight Dragon controversy generated valuable media attention
for a small company trying to grab market share from the big boys of the
brew business. This pattern of using outrageously bad taste as a marketing
gambit to generate controversy and free plugs in the mass media seems to
be playing out again with Crazy Horse malt liquor.
''They had no money and were trying to stand out,'' said Mark
Rodman, a marketing consultant hired by Hornell to advise them about the
Crazy Horse controversy.
''Their history of exploitive marketing can't be ignored in this,'' he told
the Boston Globe. Rodman said that Vultaggio and Ferolito were inspired
by Kevin Costner's film Dances With Wolves, and came up with the Crazy
Horse brand name.
Crazy Horse malt liquor apparently scored a hit in the market comprised
of "young, urban, minority males who prized its high-octane kick and 40-
ounce size and the malt taste," according to the newspaper account. The
company later launched another malt liquor called Jim Bowie -- no word on
how his family is reacting.
There's no arguing with success, as they say in the U.S.A. Ferolito,
Vultaggio & Sons -- 4501 Glenwood Rd., Brooklyn, NY 11203; phone:
(718) 284-1200; fax: (718) 284-0952 -- made the list of "emerging
companies" compiled by Hoover's Business Resources, a business reporting
service.
Their 1993 sales of brewski and a line of beverages called AriZona
Iced Tea are listed at $100 million -- a 900 percent jump over 1992 sales.
Their company posted sales of about $300 million in 1994 and plans to
double that in 1995, according to a Nov. 30, 1994 copyright story in
Business Wire.
Ferolito and Vultaggio show no sign of slacking in their exploitation of
American Indian culture and religious symbolism.
The Jan. 9, 1995 Business Wire discusses a new AriZona Iced Tea with
ginseng. Packaging for the line of ice teas is "adorned with ancient
American Indian symbols and colors." The ginseng drink comes in a
"striking 20-ounce cobalt blue bottle with expensive gold-highlighted neck
and body label. The label art depicts a Native American medicine man
riding a buffalo: a Native American symbol of divine power."
The beverage barons from Brooklyn have demonstrated their capacity to
trample on the sensibilities of Native Americans, but they apparently can't
take a taste of their own medicine.
During a lull in the March 14 questioning of Don Vultaggio in St. Paul,
attorney Bob Gough picked up an automatic camera and snapped a
photograph of Vultaggio and his attorney Lawrence Fox.
"Mr. Fox objected strenuously and vociferously that [taking a
photograph] could not be done without prior notice and permission," Gough
recalled during a recent telephone interview.
"He demanded that I expose the film, and I refused to do so," Gough
said. Fox then launched into a "very impassioned and heated discussion"
about how snapping the photo violated Vultaggio's privacy.
The act of capturing Vultaggio's image on film without his permission
"seems to me to be the heart of this case," said Gough. He had no intention
of exploiting or distributing the photo he took of Vultaggio. Or using it on
a
beer bottle label. Gough took the snapshot because he intended "to bring it
back to the estate, to the family [of Crazy Horse], because people here --
they couldn't travel 500 miles to the deposition -- wanted to see what a
person looked like who would do such a thing as put the name of a spiritual
leader on a liquor bottle."
* * * * * *
The Minnesota initiative to ban Crazy Horse booze recently found an
echo out west.
On Feb. 24 a bill was introduced in the California Assembly to make it
"unlawful for any alcoholic beverage bottled, sold, or distributed in
California to carry a label bearing the name 'Crazy Horse.'"
The bill is prefaced by several legislative declarations. The authors say:
"Crazy Horse was outspoken in his opposition to the consumption of
alcohol by Native Americans, and would never have consented to the use of
his name to market an alcoholic beverage. The use of his name on a malt
liquor is both disrespectful of his memory and degrading to his descendants
and all Native American people."
They also note that the "Native American community has been
devastated by alcohol abuse. The use of the name 'Crazy Horse' in
connection with an alcoholic beverage contributes to a stereotypical
association between Native American people and alcohol."
The California lawmakers are especially concerned about the message
being sent to impressionable youth who could be attracted to the images
conjured up by marketing campaigns for products such as Hornell's malt
liquor:
"There is a strong emphasis in our schools, especially in communities of
color, to educate and empower youth through cultural awareness. The use of
cultural themes and symbols, including the use of a name sacred to Native
American culture, to promote the consumption of alcohol is a disservice to
all young people, and to Native American young people in particular."
Seth Big Crow knows too well the ravages wrought by alcohol on Indian
communities. Now 56, he told the Boston Globe that he started drinking as a
teenager and quit ''on Nov. 26, 1979. . . . My life is very different now,
but
many on the reservation, including my own family members, are still
struggling with alcohol. It has been very, very destructive to our people.''
[The administrative law hearing on the Hornell challenge of the state ban
on Crazy Horse malt liquor will begin at 9:00 a.m. on April 19 at the Office
of Administrative Hearings, 100 Washington Ave. So., Minneapolis. The
Crazy Horse Defense Project will be holding 8:00 a.m. rallies on
Wednesday, April 19 and Thursday, April 20. For further information call
(612) 870-9006 in the Twin Cities; (715) 425-0004 in River Falls,
Wisconsin.]
- 30 -
Copyright Mordecai Specktor 1995
All rights reserved
mordecaisp@aol.com