It's notoriously difficult to get a liquor license in Chicago: the supposedly pro-business Daley administration has presided over the decline of the neighborhood tavern, and as Julia Thiel shows on the Food Chain, even  entrepreneurs who try to do everything the right way (10 PM closing, private entry, letters to all the neighbors) may be shot down in their quest for a liquor license by letter writers whose specific complaints go undisclosed for  reasons of privacy. What's a poor guy to do?