LIQUOR PLANT RAIDED.

Hawera Star, Volume XLVII, 28 December 1927, Page 8

LIQUOR PLANT RAIDED.

SUBTERRANEAN BREWERY IN DETROIT OCCUPIED CITY BLOCK. DETROIT, Nov. 10. A subterranean brewery, its intricate system of basements and passageways yielding beer and liquor-making equipment worth £IOO,OOO/ has been found by federal prohibition agents a few steps from Detroit's main artery, Woodward avenue. So extensive was the plant that it occupied an entire city block of basements, and most of the office building above. Sam Vacarelli, prohibition administrator, believes that in the discovery last night, his office lias uncovered the main source of supply to many of Detroit’s blind pigs and bars. A fashionable night club at 33 Solden Avenue, which was believed to be the headquarters and general office of the' underground plant, wias deserted when the agents arrived at an hour picked as most likely to catch, the aftertheatre crowd.

In the dining-room Where nearly 200 tables were set, many laden with food, there were evidences of a liiasty exit by patrons. A few tables has beep overturned. From racks in the checkrooms were hung coats and hats left behind in the hurried departure. Du a 150-foot bar at the rear of the dining-room were glasses containing beer or whisky, which patrons had nob taker; time to consume, as word of the impending raid was received. Behind the bar the serving counters were fully shocked.

Most elaborate was till© plant outlay, most lavish was the liquor-making equipment. Included in the contraband, which the agents seized, were a beer vat containing 25,000 gallons of beer, several hundred barrels of beer, a large quantity of bottled beer, 11 cases Q'f whisky, 18 1500-gallon vats of beer, three 25,000 gallon -vats of beer, a ton and a half of filter paper used in purifying beer, three 30,000 gallon wooden whisky tanks empty, a large ammonia refrigeration plant, a ‘‘racker” machine, used in filling kegs, and five large auto trucks.

After more than an hour’s investigation agents found a cleverly concealed trapdoor of steel, leading to a basement.

At one end of the basement another trapdoor was discovered. This led to a large room extending nearly a quarter of a block, where an elaborate beermaking plant had been installed. Other passageways led from this main room, one trucking tunnel to a garage business across an alley. Indications were that the rum had been trucked to the garage, where automobiles awaited to transport it.

One large (store-room where several hundred barrels of beer were stacked extended to the basement of Orchestra Hall, hom.e of the Detroit .symphony orchestra.

Agents found that buildings in the entire block, with the exception of two small! storerooms, were used ais storehouses.

Owners of the property are to be ouestioned, but so far no arrests have been made. Of the 32 nossible exits from the nlant'. most of them led into the street door and basements of buildings in the block.