"There were folks that were dropping their whiskeys into their beers, and it was 10 o'clock in the morning," he said.
"If I don't get anything else done while I'm governor, we got the M&M open," he added. http://www.billingsgazette.com/index.ph ... ov-bar.incGovernor delivers license to famous bar
Associated Press
BUTTE - Gov. Brian Schweitzer hand-delivered a new liquor license to the owner of the landmark M&M Cigar Store on Thursday, and used bolt cutters to snip the chain that has held the saloon's doors shut for nearly two years.
"It's great to have it open again," Schweitzer said after throwing back a shot of scotch. "May she never close."
The M&M closed its doors in April 2003, ending a 113-year run, after its former owner filed for bankruptcy. The business had been an institution in Uptown Butte for decades, especially as a rallying point during the city's uninhibited St. Patrick's Day celebrations.
It was the most celebrated bar in a roaring mining town full of bars. Back in the days when Butte's fabled copper mines ran 24 hours a day, the saloons kept the same hours to serve miners. It was a tradition the M&M never surrendered, even when the mines shut down.
The new owner, Bud Walker, who is also a county commissioner, said he plans to open the bar to the public on Tuesday, and will open the restaurant sometime next month.
Schweitzer, who visited Butte Thursday as part of his tour of Montana counties, stopped at the M&M to deliver Walker's new liquor license at a ceremony marking the bar's revival from bankruptcy.
"It's not too often a governor will open up a bar," Walker said.
Schweitzer, recalling a breakfast at the M&M a few years earlier, talked about the unique nature of both the bar and its patrons.
"There were folks that were dropping their whiskeys into their beers, and it was 10 o'clock in the morning," he said.
"If I don't get anything else done while I'm governor, we got the M&M open," he added.
Beat Genration writer Jack Kerouac visited the M&M Bar and described it for Esquire magazine in 1970, calling it "the end of my quest for an ideal bar."
