Introduction
Prohibition was caused by church groups and women who were pushing the temperance movement to outlaw booze during the time of prime minister, Robert Borden. In 1916, the Liquor Control Act (LCA) of Ontario banned public or hotel drinking, but not the manufacture or export of liquor. These laws lasted about eleven years until 1927. A little while later on January 16th, 1920, the U.S. Eighteenth Amendment banned the sale, manufacture and transportation of “intoxicating liquor.” This “dry spell” lasted a long twenty-four years in the United States from 1919 to 1933. Lucky for the United States, Ontario’s prohibition laws were much shorter lived and lenient than their own. Ontario also had one the most popular border cities connecting …show more content…
People took big risks doing this and had to be very careful. Women were often used because they would not be frisked coming through the border and could easily tuck away booze in hidden places such as in their petticoat, stockings, pockets, coat sleeves, or pant legs. People even constructed hidden compartments in their clothing or harnesses to carry the large bottles in within their apparel. Delivery shipments on boats were marked as if they were going to foreign destinations like Cuba or India, but they were only headed over the river to Detroit. Export docks dotted the entire shoreline from Lake St. Clair to Lake Erie. They were always clogged with eager rum runners ready to make fast money, however police and security was in full force on land and sea here. Some people even hollowed out bricks to disguise every bit of liquor. In the winter, people would drive lighter cars called “whiskey-sixes” because of their six-cylinder engine, filled with cases of booze across the ice. They even painted their cars white to camouflage them with the white landscape. It was even said that a Henry Ford Model-T was rolled into the Detroit River to occupy the police while others delivered as much booze as they could before anyone noticed. When there was a demand for booze, people had money to spend and could make money quickly, people did almost anything to be apart this risky
Prohibition was caused by church groups and women who were pushing the temperance movement to outlaw booze during the time of prime minister, Robert Borden. In 1916, the Liquor Control Act (LCA) of Ontario banned public or hotel drinking, but not the manufacture or export of liquor. These laws lasted about eleven years until 1927. A little while later on January 16th, 1920, the U.S. Eighteenth Amendment banned the sale, manufacture and transportation of “intoxicating liquor.” This “dry spell” lasted a long twenty-four years in the United States from 1919 to 1933. Lucky for the United States, Ontario’s prohibition laws were much shorter lived and lenient than their own. Ontario also had one the most popular border cities connecting …show more content…
People took big risks doing this and had to be very careful. Women were often used because they would not be frisked coming through the border and could easily tuck away booze in hidden places such as in their petticoat, stockings, pockets, coat sleeves, or pant legs. People even constructed hidden compartments in their clothing or harnesses to carry the large bottles in within their apparel. Delivery shipments on boats were marked as if they were going to foreign destinations like Cuba or India, but they were only headed over the river to Detroit. Export docks dotted the entire shoreline from Lake St. Clair to Lake Erie. They were always clogged with eager rum runners ready to make fast money, however police and security was in full force on land and sea here. Some people even hollowed out bricks to disguise every bit of liquor. In the winter, people would drive lighter cars called “whiskey-sixes” because of their six-cylinder engine, filled with cases of booze across the ice. They even painted their cars white to camouflage them with the white landscape. It was even said that a Henry Ford Model-T was rolled into the Detroit River to occupy the police while others delivered as much booze as they could before anyone noticed. When there was a demand for booze, people had money to spend and could make money quickly, people did almost anything to be apart this risky