RHODES: Montreal House became place to buy beer in 1930s
When the Ontario Temperance Act was brought into existence (September 1916) it totally banned the possession and consumption of whiskey.
Beer, at the traditional rate of 5 per cent, was also banned.
Proponents of the OTA. thought that they had finally ridden Ontario of booze and the evil it produced, but they were wrong; they had only driven the industry underground where there was no control and no taxation.
The OTA was partially repealed in 1927, with LCBO supply of whiskey for home consumption only, no bars or taverns.
In the early to mid 1930s Premier Mitch Hepburn decided to allow hotels to sell beer, by the glass, but he continued with the ban on whiskey at hotels which, in Chatham at least, would continue until the early 1960s.
At some point, I am not sure when, a “ladies and escorts” regulation was introduced where men sat in one room and women in another.
Men could go into the women’s section but only if they were with females.
The obvious........© Sarnia Observer
