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1933 — 2026
Permits and escrows: The liquor license is the document under every room in this section, and its record is mostly silent — permits granted, renewed, and surrendered without print. What surfaces is printed here. Indiana, not the city, issues the permits, a allocation of power the cabarets tested and lost in the 2019–2020 litigation told above: the Indiana Code forbids a city to regulate the operation of a state liquor permit holder's business, and the Court of Appeals held that Fort Wayne's conduct ordinance regulated the clubs' conduct, not their permits, and so could stand. The two "first license" claims of 1933 — the State Bar's first beer and Belmont's Flagship as the first store licensed after Repeal — are told in the tavern entry. The ledger's most recent entry closes this section's largest story: when Century Music Hall, Piere's successor, closed in August 2026, its owners addressed the rumor directly in their statement — the venue had not lost its liquor license, they said; it had been voluntarily placed into escrow, the state's mechanism for parking a permit on a dark room. WPTA's reporting noted that state records showed excise violations connected to the property. Stan's Room and Bobby McGee's, the complex's surviving rooms, kept operating under their own permits — the Canterbury ledger, like the Calhoun Street one of 1888, still open.
Sources:
- B&S of Fort Wayne, Inc. v. City of Fort Wayne (Ind. Ct. App. 2020) — Indiana Code § 7.1-3-9-6 and the state-permit framework, as litigated.
- WPTA, "Century Music Hall, formerly Piere's, closing after six years in Fort Wayne" and "Fort Wayne venue closure sparks push to rebuild local music scene" (August 3, 2026) — the owners' escrow statement and the excise violations shown in state records.
- The State Bar and Belmont Beverage house accounts — the twin first-after-Repeal claims, told in the tavern entry of this section.