Lager Beer Riot
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"Beer riot" redirects here. For the incidents in Bavaria, see Beer riots in Bavaria.
The Lager Beer Riot occurred on April 21, 1855 in Chicago, Illinois, and was the first major civil disturbance in the city. Mayor Levi Boone, a Nativist politician, renewed enforcement of an old local ordinance mandating that taverns be closed on Sundays and led the city council to raise the cost of a liquor license from $50 per year to $300 per year, renewable quarterly.[1] The move was seen as targeting German immigrants in particular and so caused a greater sense of community within the group.[2]