Here’s a Fractured Fact about Prohibition, which went into effect 94 years ago on January 16, 1920: it didn’t make drinking alcohol illegal.
The Volstead Act (18th Amendment) simply prohibited the manufacture,
importation, sale and transport of alcoholic beverages in the United States. Industrious
private citizens, under the law, could make up to 200 gallons of wine and cider
each year, at home, for their personal use. But not beer or distilled liquors.
As you know from watching movies like “Capone,” a lot of folks kept on drinking
after Prohibition became law. While it was in effect (repealed in 1933), average
spending on alcoholic beverages more than doubled.
Some of that money was spent in speakeasy
clubs that sprouted everywhere. According to several estimates, in 1925 there were
at least 30,000 “speaks,” and maybe as many as 100,000, in New York City alone.
And, of course, as you know from watching movies like “The Untouchables,” organized
crime got involved in a big way. An informed guess is that more than $3 billion
a year was passing through the hands of gangsters, whiskey runners and club owners
who sought to provide a much-desired public service. Authorities never put enough money and resources into enforcement.
What were the “drys” thinking when they pulled the Prohibition caper?
p.s.
An interesting aside from my trusted personal advisor: some Florida folks
figured out how to beat Prohibition with the comforting collusion of their
doctors and the barkeeper at The Palace Saloon, established in 1903 near the
waterfront in Fernandina Beach on Amelia Island, just north of Jacksonville. Under
the Volstead Act, doctors could prescribe wine for "medicinal"
purposes...and the local docs on Amelia Island generously handed out "prescriptions"
to their thirsty patients who got ‘em filled at the Palace….which now righteously
claims to be the Sunshine State’s “oldest continuously operated drinking establishment.”
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