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WHITECLAY, Neb. — The Budweiser trucks rolled into Whiteclay early Monday morning for what could be the last time. But instead of hauling cases into the unincorporated village’s four beer-only liquor stores, a group of men brought stacks and stacks of boxes out to load into the truck.

Store owners said other distributors will pick up the remaining products within the week. By noon, the store’s shelves were nearly empty.

Whiteclay’s streets were empty, too. Lakota Hope, the street ministry in the village, made pancakes for anyone who was hanging around on Monday. But when those with the ministry went out to tell the street people about the free meal, they didn’t find the usual group of men hanging on the village’s edges. Just one man joined the group for breakfast.

Counselors from Rapid City and Sioux Falls, South Dakota, came to the village Monday, too, only to find out that there was no one there.

“We don’t have the people and the problems we were expecting,” said Matt Walz of Keystone Treatment Center in Sioux Falls. “Now it’s a matter of figuring out how to actually help.”

Though their liquor licenses didn’t expire until midnight Sunday, the Whiteclay beer store owners collectively decided not to open at all Sunday.