The Loose Cannon: The Two Spot Bar
Editor’s Note: The text and language of the clips from the Napa Valley Register included in this column were published more than 60 years ago.
The Two Spot Bar was one of the many Yountville dive bars of the 1960s. It is currently home to a very well-known Yountville landmark.
When I was in high school, the Two Spot Bar was the only place in the area that my buddies and I knew we could be served. Since that was around 56 years ago, I honestly don’t remember how many times we might have gone there. But it wasn’t often, Yountville was still a scary town after dark in the 1960s.
I wrote two previous columns about the Two Spot Bar. I have combined those two columns and summarize here many of the activities that were reported at the Two Spot Bar by the Napa Valley Register (NVR).
March 1961: Beer was stolen from a large walk-in refrigerator behind the Two Spot.
Dec. 1962: Joann Cesmat was tending bar at the Two Spot when 29-year-old Delia Basua came behind the bar on Christmas Night and attacked her.
Jan. 1963: Two Mexican laborers with severe knife wounds were arrested after a fight with two other Mexicans near the Two Spot.
April 1963: Taxicab driver Lee Boley went inside the Two Spot to pick up a customer and left his car running… It was found abandoned in an open field near Rutherford the next morning.
April 1963: Thieves made off with an estimated $200 in cash and four cases of beer from the Two Spot.
NVR, May 3, 1963: YOUNTVILLE – The second strong arm robbery of elderly Veterans Home residents was discovered by sheriff’s deputies last night on routine patrol when they heard an injured man call for help.
Deputies James Munk and John Robertson were making a routine check of the Two Spot bar in Yountville at 1:45 a.m. when they heard Leslie L. Cranney, 67, call for help. They rushed behind the Two Spot and found him injured in a parked car. He told officers he had been in the Two Spot and left at 9 p.m. When he walked outside, he said he was hit on the head and beaten into unconsciousness. Some $40 was taken from his wallet, he said.
On April 12 another Veterans Home resident said he met a man and woman in the Two Spot and went to the Sportsmen Club later. He said the couple offered him a ride to Napa but instead drove him to a lonely spot on Dry Creek and robbed him.
Aug. 1964: Valerian Figueroa of Yountville had a 25 caliber lever action rifle with a telescopic sight stolen from a pickup truck parked at the Two Spot.
NVR, May 6, 1965: YOUNTVILLE – An assistant cook at Veterans Home was jailed last night on charges of firing a shotgun in a bar and wounding a woman in the legs.
Held in county jail for assault with a deadly weapon is Loree McKinney Jr., 22. The victim, Flo Ellen Sanders, 41, Yount Crossroads, was taken to Queen of the Valley Hospital by Piner ambulance. She was treated for numerous shotgun pellet wounds in her legs and was released.
Sheriff’s investigator Donald Jones reconstructed the incident this way:
At about 11:15 p.m. the suspect was in the Two Spot bar and got into “a slight argument” with a man identified only as Ed Smith. The argument ended and McKinney offered his hand to Smith in friendship but Smith slugged McKinney in the mouth knocking out two of the suspect’s teeth. McKinney left the bar and returned about 15 minutes later. He found the bar door locked and he kicked it open, entering with a 12 gauge pump action shotgun.
Meanwhile, Smith had left the bar, and McKinney began questioning patrons as to Smith’s identity.
Then, one of the patrons, identified as John Haddox, General Delivery, Yountville, said, “Come on, have a beer.”
McKinney wheeled suddenly and fired the shotgun in the direction of Haddix. The charge smashed into the bar stool Haddix was sitting on,
The victim had just walked through the doorway and was behind the stool. Numerous shotgun pellets apparently glanced off and hit her in the legs.
McKinney then left the bar and was walking along Madison Avenue, still armed with the shotgun when he saw a man he knew, identified as Russell Soper, drive by. Soper stopped and McKinney asked him to take him to the police. McKinney was driven back to the bar where he surrendered to sheriff’s deputies.
The victim, a waitress at the El Real Restaurant in Rutherford, had so many leg wounds “it looked like she had measles,” Jones reported.
May 1965: Smith pleaded guilty to battery against McKinney who was punched in the mouth and lost two teeth. Smith was fined $276 for his role in the above incident.
July 1965: McKinney pleaded guilty to simple assault.
Aug. 1965: Loree McKinney Jr. was initially sentenced to six months in jail, but that sentence was suspended and he was placed on three years probation for firing the shotgun in the Two Spot. He was also ordered to pay a $550 fine and make restitution to Sanders for her medical bills.
While on probation, McKinney was ordered not to drink liquor, to stay away from bars and not to own or handle any firearms.
The Two Spot Bar is now better known to locals, and Playboy magazine readers, as Yountville’s only remaining dive bar: Pancha’s.
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