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An Interview with Charles Pfaff


New York Daily Tribune
It was precisely because this barroom attracted so many customers that, on November 23, 1877, a writer for the New York Daily Tribune talked with Pfaff about his reaction to the Excise Commission’s process of licensing proprietors to keep hotels and his opinion on Sunday laws, which forbade the sale of alcohol on that day of the week.1 This was, of course, a concern for hotelkeepers, who often received requests for liquor on Sundays from paying guests and would want to find ways of accommodating them even if the establishment’s barroom remained closed to the public on that day. The Daily Tribune writer explained that he wanted to hear from Pfaff on these matters because his basement was virtually a lager bier saloon, and “the beer custom contributes largely to the revenue of the establishment.”2 This is one of only two known times when a conversation with Pfaff about his business appears in print, and his thoughts on licensing and Sunday blue laws are particularly revealing. Before addressing Pfaff’s comments, however, the rather complex procedure for licensing hotels should be explained here. According to the first part of the article, in order to obtain a license to keep a hotel, inn, or tavern in New York City, it was necessary for a person desiring a license to apply to the Excise Commission by writing a statement proposing to keep a hotel and showing the need for a hotel in a particular location. The statement was also supposed to serve as a testament to a proprietor’s ability to run the business, to his “good moral character,” and to assure the commission that the place provided at least three spare beds. An applicant also had to confirm that the establishment was not to be used for gambling or other immoral activities,

Police Uniforms
such as prostitution. An affidavit must be obtained testifying to these facts, the licensing fee must be paid, and a sum of $250 must be filed with each of two bondsmen. An inspection of the hotel in question would then take place and, afterwards, a report was presented to the board; the Commission then decided whether or not the license would be granted. Businesses not receiving licenses for whatever reason could not continue to operate, and the police, therefore, “quietly closed them up.”3

On the day of his conversation with the writer for the Tribune, it was this complex process that had left Charles Pfaff “perfectly convinced he had been ill-treated by the Excise Commissioners.” Pfaff’s complaint was that his license had expired a little more than three months earlier, on August 1, 1877, but on the day before the expiration date he had paid the fee and received a receipt. This receipt, according to the Excise Commissioners, did not substitute for a license nor did it promise one would be granted since all of the other steps in the process had to be fulfilled as well. Pfaff, on the other hand, believed the receipt should have some validity: “[W]hy should I not have some rights? I can’t get my license, and they say I must not carry on my business without it,” a clearly frustrated Pfaff told the writer. Pfaff’s Hotel and his basement bar-room and, of course, its wine cellar were his primary if not his only sources of income, and he certainly did not want to risk having his then unlicensed establishment shut down by police. In fact, Pfaff wanted to stay as far away from legal trouble as possible, a view he expresses quite adamantly when he compares the liquor laws of the United States to those of England:

They [New York police] might have a law as they have in England, that liquor should not be sold during the hours of church service. Then they make their arrests here in an indecent way. In England if a man violates the Sunday law, he receives a notice to appear on the following day. Here he is arrested and locked up over night. I don’t want to be arrested in that way. I had plenty of it seventeen years ago, in the days of the old Bohemians.4
Pfaff suggests that New York should follow England’s example when it comes to Sunday Laws; however, his thoughts on the arrests resulting from the city’s stringent policies on alcohol sales are even more significant because they shed new light on Pfaff’s relationship to his former American Bohemian clientele. Pfaff does not portray the Bohemians as his best and most beloved customers, but rather he implies that their behavior caused him legal troubles and/or may have resulted in his arrest for violating the Sunday laws or for other unspecified activities.

This interview with the Tribune is the first time Pfaff explicitly indicates that he may still harbor some anger at the American Bohemians, and he firmly asserts that he is fed up with legal troubles. His sentiments are reminiscent of the desire of a “Charles Pfaff” at 696 Broadway who seemingly wanted to put a stop to any remaining American Bohemians’

Office of the Board of Excise
antics in 1869 when the barkeeper Edward de Brauwere had Edward Lingham arrested for failure to pay his check.5 The implications here are that although the Bohemians may have drawn customers to Pfaff’s, they may have landed the proprietor in legal difficulties or even in jail overnight on more than one occasion, and one has to wonder what they did at his old cellar given that he appears to have a strong reaction to the incidents when recalling them so many years later. Pfaff’s statements suggest that his relationship to his former American Bohemian clientele was more complicated than previously imagined and that he may not have always been the group’s willing, genial host. In this light, it makes sense that Pfaff would want to publicly dissociate himself not only from the American Bohemians of the past, but also from any records of his arrest if, indeed, such documents existed; after all, Pfaff was at the time of this interview the owner of a recently expanded restaurant and hotel business that needed licensing approval and paying customers. At the same time, the situation that Pfaff describes with regard to the Excise Commission begs the question of why Pfaff had not yet been granted his new license since he had certainly obtained similar licenses that allowed him to sell alcohol and operate eating houses for many years prior to 1877. Regardless of the reason for the licensing issue, it seems to have been only a temporary problem, and it must have been resolved to Pfaff’s satisfaction since his hotel remained open, and he proceeded with the operation of his business until he was forced, seemingly through no fault of his own, to give it up.

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