Posted on 03/24/2012 8:56:57 AM PDT by DogByte6RER
These are the places in America where alcohol is still banned
The year was 1933. America's fourteen-year experiment in sobriety was over; the federally mandated ban on the sale and manufacture of alcohol had been lifted. All across the U.S., people welcomed the repeal of prohibition with open arms and flowing taps.
Or rather, most of them did. Meet the counties where America's "noble experiment" never died.
When prohibition lifted almost eighty years ago, many communities (particularly in the Bible Belt) voted to keep alcohol bans in place at the local level. Today, there are still more than 200 "dry" counties nationwide with what most would consider excessively stringent liquor laws. There are even more that remain partially dry (or "moist," to those familiar with the particulars of prohibition legislation).
It's interesting to compare the effects of early 20th century prohibition against those of 2012. America's first experiment with alcohol regulation was a failure on many fronts. Alcohol consumption remained rampant. Thousands died from poorly prepared bathtub liquor. But on the other hand, it also fueled a pretty badass culture of back-alley science and innovation. Smugglers looking to bootleg booze had to come up with innovative ways of eluding the law. Sometimes this involved coming up with creative ways to hide cargo; other times all it meant was being able to outrun whoever was chasing you.
In many ways, prohibition was the catalyst for the first (and arguably biggest) large-scale Do-It-Yourself science movement in the nation's history; home-brewing became extremely popular during prohibition, with magazines like Popular Science publishing how-to guides for assembling DIY distilleries, and measuring your alcohol to keep it within the ABV standards outlined by the eighteenth amendment.
Today, however, it seems like the only real benefit to prohibition is the sense of moral superiority that it instills in those who support it — and that's a reality many of the country's driest regions are having to face up to. According to the BBC, many communities that have been dry for decades have been forced to re-evaluate their non-alcoholic standards in light of hard economic times. If you look at the map, you'll notice that many of the dry and moist counties are interspersed with wet ones. With establishments in dry communities losing business to those in counties that permit alcohol, there are many who feel that the prohibition model cannot hold.
"I hope that we can move into the 21st Century and take advantage of a lot of the things that other communities have," explained Paul Croley, a local lawyer who recently led a campaign to change the status of Williamsburg Kentucky from dry to moist. (The tiny community voted on Tuesday — by a margin of just 14 votes — to finally allow the sale of alcohol in restaurants).
"It is time to wake up and realise that our standard of living can be as good as our neighbours."
Yikes! The ghost of the original battleaxe, Carrie Nation, lives on! Bio - Standing at nearly 6 feet tall and weighing 180 pounds, Carry Amelia Moore Nation, Carrie Nation, as she came to be known, cut an imposing figure. Wielding a hatchet, she was downright frightful. In 1900, the target of Nation's wrath was alcoholic drink. Between 1900 and 1910 she was arrested some 30 times after leading her followers in the destruction of one water hole after another with cries of "Smash, ladies, smash!"
Ping
(I hate to say it, but I think I may avoid some of these highlighted red state areas on this map.)
The same will be said of the current drug prohibition. It fuels organized crime to the point that entire continents are destabilized, it finances terrorism, and all for nothing as it doesn't stop addicts from spending their last dime on their drug of choice. Prohibition is utterly counterproductive.
That red splotch in South Dakota is the Pine Ridge Reservation, where the ban on alcohol is moot since the unincorporated White Clay, Nebraska (pop 14) lies 2 miles south, and sells over 5 million cans of beer each year. Go figure.
There is a lot of history here. If you went back to 1888...the vast majority of men in America were consuming a fair amount of booze on a daily basis. Wives were buying the medicinal bottles loaded with alcohol and narcotics. We were a vast society consumed with ease of purchase and acceptance by society.
So this clean-up period in the 1900’s did some good. It made everyone stand back and reflect on what we were doing. But I’d admit that any county that remains dry today....is losing millions on tax revenue to surrounding counties that accept liquor sales. I grew up in a dry county, which still remains dry today. They’ve lost at least $50 million over the past thirty years since I left the county as a kid....which went to their neighbors instead.
I went to college in a city that was dry long after prohibition. One of its suburbs, a small town only a few blocks long was just across the street. To this day that suburb is composed entirely of bars.
Incidentally, Kansas (home of Carrie Nation) still hasn’t ratified the 21st Amendment, and continues to have some of the screwiest alcohol laws in the country.
She doesn’t look like Whitney Houston.
Any study like this should also include MADD laws, since there are other means to prohibition.
If I would have saw that hateful old bitch coming into my business, I might have cut her in half with a shotgun. (the bouncer sure as hell wouldn’t be able to handle her lol)
Has anybody noticed that Carrie Nation looks like Barney Frank in drag?
Has anybody noticed that Carrie Nation looks like Barney Frank in drag?
The churches still dictate local laws in some of these parts. Saving us from ourselves I suppose.
Why is Utah not highlighted anywhere? I was up there snowboarding once and my buddy and I couldn’t find a bar or any place that sold liquor anywhere near Orem or Provo.
Just for accurate history's sake, this is a misleading statement. Alcohol consumption plummeted; all over the country, drying out places closed for lack of business. Liver disease fell.
Whether these were worth the black market that sprang up is a judgement call.
But Prohibition proved one thing very clearly: If you pass a law to control a certain behavior, most law-abiding citizens will respect the law and not do it.(That's what "law abiding" means, after all). When Prohibition was repealed consumption returned to former levels.
The facts suggest that legalizing marijuana will result in a significant rise in consumption as the law abiding people who eschew it now would feel free to indulge. Something to consider for the implications.
BTW America has a history of such laws going back to colonial times. Prohibition was in the grand tradition of "sumptuary laws" carried over from England, and which sought to enforce morality in all sorts of ways. Like Prohibition they were inconsistent, often repealed after elections, with little effect in the long run.
I wouldn’t exactly call it prohibition here in Michigan. 5 hours per day you can’t buy alcohol is no big deal. (2AM to 7AM) Just buy what you need before 2AM.
An old girl who has been running one local party store since 1938 won’t sell till 5PM on Sundays.
As I understand it Utah has odd laws regarding alcohol sales. Seems like I read that you have to buy a membership kinda like belonging to the Elks or Moose.
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