On this day in history, January 17, 1920, the U.S. Congress passed the Volstead Act. This allowed for the enforcement of Prohibition which had been enacted with the 18th Amendment to the Constitution almost exactly one year earlier. You can read all about it here. Prohibition made the “manufacture, sale, or transportation of intoxicating liquors for beverage purposes” illegal nationwide. While “going dry” failed to stem people’s thirst for barley-based (and other) brews, it did have the unintended side effect of setting off the country’s greatest wave of organized crime, as gangsters like Al Capone filled the void created when liquor’s manufacture, sale, and transportation were outlawed.
Prohibition officially ended in 1933 when the 21st Amendment repealed it.
<You either learn from history, or you repeat it – but I digress.>
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When I was growing up in Pennsylvania in the 60’s, you had to go to the “State Store” to buy liquor. This allowed the State to tightly control – and more importantly, to realize all the profits from – liquor sales. Things are different now. I’m not even sure “Blue Laws,” which prohibit alcohol sales on Sundays, are even in effect anywhere any more. Maybe still in Kansas? But at any rate, times change, and the world keeps on spinning round. Imagine that.
In my high school there was a kid named David Trone. Long after Prohibition ended – also long after the demise of the State Store monopoly – he went on to found Total Wine and More. Today – according to the company’s website – Total Wine is the largest independent retailer of fine wine in the country and David Trone is a billionaire. In fact he just recently got elected to the U.S. House of Representatives from Maryland’s 6th Congressional District. He spent over 15 million dollars of his own money to get there, too. And that was on his second run for office. The first – in 2016, in the 8th District – was unsuccessful and cost him 12 million dollars. But still, you gotta admire the persistence. That plus an extra 3 million apparently did the trick.
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Colorado recently got rid of one of the last vestiges of Prohibition when it began to allow the sale of “full strength” beer in grocery stores. You can read all about it here. Prior to January 1, 2019 in Colorado you had to settle for 3.2% beer in the grocery. But now you can have one of my favorites, Brother Thelonious Ale (9% ABV), direct from King Soopers. Profit-wise that’s bad news for Total Wine and More. But it’s good news for most of the rest of us.
Skol!
I was unaware that PA had done away with the state store systems. Well do I remember buying 1 6-pack of 16 oz cans, and then running back in to buy a second, because you could only buy 12×12 oz at a time at a beer store. For any more, you had to go to a distributor.