Introduction
Licensed in 1934 after the repeal of Prohibition, this bar was located at 697 Sylvan Street. It was not far from the New York Shipbuilding Corporation shipyards, and many shipyard workers patronized the establishment. Joseph A. Ragan operated the bar in the 1930s.
Joseph Ragan was born August 1, 1888 in Pennsylvania. At the time of the 1920 census he worked as a welder at one of Camden’s shipyards. He had moved to Oaklyn by April of 1930. Joseph Ragan became involved in the bar business in the mid-1930s. He had sold the bar sometime after 1940. By 1947 he moved to 405 Penn Street. He was then working as a dispatcher according to the 1947 City Directory. He was still living on Penn Street as late as 1959. Joseph Ragan passed away in June of 1965.
Frank & Stella Bil operated the bar as the Village Cafe from the mid-1940s through the early 1970s.
Both sides of the 600 block of Sylvan were razed many years ago. No sign of Ragan’s Saloon is visible today.
4th Annual Shipyard Workers Ball
— Banquet Program
Joseph Ragan Saloon
Seventh and Sylvan Streets
Drinks, Even If Free, Break Sunday Law
Camden Courier-Post —
Service and Not Just Sale Called Wrong at Hearing of ABC Board
If you own a taproom and want to give your bosom pal or your wife or your mother-in-law a drink at the bar on Sunday—don’t do it. It’s a violation of city ordinance.
The clink of a two-bit piece bouncing from the mahogany to the till isn’t necessary to create the legal breach; the mere service of alcoholic beverage in licensed premises during restricted hours is all that’s necessary for the loss or suspension of a license.
That formal ruling was made last night by the Camden Municipal Alcohol Beverage Control Board when several licenses, accused of sale or service on Sunday, presented the plea they were “giving away” their liquor. The board’s ruling follows:
“It isn’t necessary for a sale of alcoholic beverage to be made during restricted hours to be a law violation. License holders, either club or retail, are not permitted to serve any alcohol on licensed premises during restricted hours. Defendants who give liquor away under such circumstances are subject to either revocation or suspension of their licenses.”
7 Cases Up for Ruling
The board paused to make the ruling during a hectic session at which hearings were held in seven cases of Sunday service or sale, and more than a score of property owners near Fifth and Pine streets spoke for or against an application for the transfer of one liquor license.
Decisions in all the cases were reserved until tomorrow night at 7:30 in Council Chamber, City Hall. Decisions then will be handed down also in five other pending Sunday cases. Action will clear the decks for the excise board to start considering renewal of 300 licenses of all types before July 1, the date for renewal.
Walter Konopka, 1921 South Fourth street, pleaded not guilty to sale on Sunday. But it developed his son, Henry, invited a party of in-laws into his father’s place after a turkey shoot on Sunday, December 18. While they were having a stirrup cup on the house, in walked ABC Agents R. C. Lockwood, William Brooks and Norman Myers. The agents agreed only members of the family were present, along with guns and dead turkeys.
Officers of George W. Booz Post, American Legion, 1944 Broadway, testified they were giving away beer to members on Sunday, December 4. The beer, they said, was the residue from a party held Saturday night; so why let it go to waste? Agents Brooks and Myers happened in at the wake over the dead barrels and preferred the charge.
Contractors—Not Customers
Joseph A. Ragan pleaded not guilty to Sunday service or sale at his taproom, 697 Sylvan street, on February 26. Agents Lockwood and B. M. Sullivan were permitted to enter the place and said they found 13 men there, liquor on the bar and a table, and $41 in the cash register. Ragan said eight men were there, but they were contractors making estimates for competitive bids on alteration of the premises. He said he opened the door for the agents because he thought they were contractors, too. He claimed the glasses were from Saturday night’s closing rush hour, left for the Monday morning bartender to clean up. The cash, he said, was for the Monday morning change and payments for supplies.
Louis Bader, 538 Kaighn avenue, pleaded not guilty to service or sale also February 26. Policeman August Riehm testified he and Policeman Stanley Bobiak arrested two men who said they bought liquor at the Bader place. The informants were not present to testify.
Lockwood and Myers testified they found glasses of liquor and 24 men in the bar of the Polish-American Citizens’ Club, 1559 Mt. Ephraim avenue, on December 18. Officers of the club insisted they gave the steward strict orders not to serve or sell liquor during restricted hours. The club has a record of previous conviction for Sunday sale on March 13, 1938, for which its license was suspended for five days.
Liquor as ‘Medicine’
A bit of histrionic art was exhibited by Nunzio Milano, 1901 South Fourth street, after he pleaded guilty to Sunday sale on December 18, to Lockwood. Crushing a soft hat over his eyes, hunching up his shoulders and going through contortions designed to indicate deep misery in his tummy, he acted out a role he said the agent played in getting into his barroom. Lockwood complained of sickness, Milano testified, and, being big hearted and opposed to such suffering, he sold the agent some sure-fire nostrum.
John Revallo, 1186 Mechanic street, was heard on a charge of refilling bottles with diluted liquor, preferred by Agents Schuyler Adams and Charles G. Glenn. He admitted a conviction under the fair trade act.
The battle of the night was staged over the application of Bert Bottura for transfer of his license from 112 Mt. Ephraim avenue to 720 South Fifth street. John Pennington, chairman of the resolutions committee of the New Jersey Licensed Beverage Association, presented a petition signed by seven members of the association who have taprooms within a radius of two blocks of the latter address.
Pennington said the Seventh ward, in which Bottura now is located, has 17 licenses, while the Sixth ward, to which he proposes to move, has 28. Business is bad enough in the Sixth ward now, Pennington said, and an additional taproom there is not warranted.
Teacher Testifies
Property owners of the neighborhood who signed a petition against the transfer were represented by the testimony of Miss Sadie Seers, a former Camden school teacher, who lives at 501 Pine street, adjoining the proposed new saloon; Mr. and Mrs. H. Caldwell, 507 Pine street, and Mrs. A. B. Kleaver, 515 Pine street.
Antonio di Accentus protested the transfer on the ground the new bar would be only 375 feet from his taproom at Lyons and Williams streets and business of the neighborhood did not warrant the transfer.
Dr. Frank J. Cilliberti, Jr., who has his professional office, home and a drug store across the street, protested the transfer on the ground it would depreciate the value of his property, injure his medical practice and serve no demand for an additional taproom in the neighborhood.
Bottura testified he has been in the saloon business five years and has never been arrested for law violation. He would conduct an orderly business, he said. And his friends brought Cupid into play when they said he wants the transfer in order to establish a home above his place of business for his bride-to-be.
Thirty-six Support Plea
Sixteen property owners of the neighborhood lined up before the board and backed his plea. Twenty others stood up in the back of Council chamber to signify they held the same sentiment.
The board granted new club licenses to the International Workers’ Order, Branch No. 2586, at 457 Berkley street, and the Walt Whitman Aristocrats, 1027 Lawrence street.
It transferred the license of the South Camden Bocce Club, Inc., from 329 Spruce street to 306 Spruce street; the license at 1418 Broadway from Charles DeLuca to Charles J. LeLuca and Joseph Garaguso; the license at 202 South Fourth street from Michael W. Mignogna to Elvira Vari; that at 320 Market street from Stag Cafe, Inc., to Elizabeth Miller.
The meeting was conducted by the board members — Chairman John L. Morrisey, Secretary Ann M. Baumgartner and Curtis A. Stangtinette—and their solicitor, Assistant City Solicitor Edward V. Martino.