DEADWOOD - A Deadwood casino gift shop sells the same Native American wine bottle holder that was removed from a Rapid City shop in July amid controversy, but the store manager does not find the item to be offensive.

Madame M's Unique Boutique and Gifts, upstairs in the Deadwood Frontier Club casino, sells the bottle holder, which depicts a Native American man in traditional clothing tilting a bottle of wine into his mouth.

The casino's general manager, Dahna Allard, herself an enrolled member of the Oglala Sioux Tribe, said she heard about the controversy in Rapid City but decided not to remove the item from the store because she doesn't find it offensive.

Owners of the Gold Diggers shop on Mount Rushmore Road in Rapid City, Roger and Cindy Thompson, removed the same wine holder in July after Mayor Alan Hanks wrote a letter to them saying it was "in poor taste and disrespectful."

The mayor had received a complaint about the item, saying it was insensitive given the stereotypes that have arisen because of problems with alcoholism among Native Americans.

But Allard said she decided not to remove the wine holder because it isn't being sold as a joke or out of malice.

In fact, the complaints about the item being insensitive are themselves insensitive, she said.

"I think it's insensitive to the Indian people to assume all Indians are alcoholics," she said.

The store also carries a similar bottle holder depicting a mustachioed cowboy. The cowboy is displayed holding wine and beer bottles, but the Native American is displayed only with pop bottles "because we know it's a sensitive thing," Allard said.

She said the store has sold 18 of the $79.50 Native American pieces since they started carrying them in the spring and that tourists buy them because they love Western art.

"They just think it's cool, or they use it in their decorating," Allard said.

Contact Barbara Soderlin at 394-8417 or Barbara.soderlin@rapidcityjournal.com