Raines law hotel. State statutes allowed that any business was considered a hotel if it had 10 rooms for lodging and served sandwiches with its liquor. Saloons quickly found a loophole by adding small furnished bedrooms and applying for a hotel license. Dozens of "Raines law hotels," often located directly above saloons, opened. As a contemporary source put it, "This offered a premium on the transformation of saloons into hotels with bedrooms and led to unlooked-for evils" (an increase in prostitution), as the rooms in many "Raines law hotels" were used mostly by prostitutes and unmarried couples. (In some cases these rooms
1896 New York state election 1896 New York state election The 1896 New York state election was held on November 3, 1896, to elect the Governor, the Lieutenant Governor and a judge of the New York Court of Appeals, as well as all members of the New York State Assembly. Besides, a constitutional amendment on forestry was proposed, and rejected with 321,486 votes for and 710,505 against it. The Democratic state convention met on September 17 at Buffalo, New York, and endorsed the Free Silver platform of the Democratic national convention. Mayor of Albany John Boyd Thacher, a Gold Democrat, was nominated for Governor on