FROM: Warledng Lives *

Uamco UVC

(R86 - 19 8G

New Stec Booles ,

(9357

Sit Down, Shut Up
and Drink Your Beer

THE WORLD CHANGED BUT THEY
didn’t: from the prosperity of the
twenties through the oil crisis of
the seventies, Vancouver’s beer
parlours stood resolute. A gathering
place for the city’s workers, they
were also a 50-year memorial to the
province’s experiment with
prohibition.

At the turn of the century Vancouver's
saloons were open 24 hours a day. In
the Clarence Hotel on Seymour, ‘‘The
Dutchman” poured three fingers of rye
for 15*, while beer sold for a penny an
ounce. Here working men — rarely
women — stood at the bar to
drink, eat, swap stories and argue
politics.

The Clarence was fortunate; it
survived the onslaught of the
prohibitionists who pointed to the
“workingman’s club’ as the cause of
prostitution, drug abuse, lost wages,
and the despair of neglected families.
During World War I, to the chagrin of
the Vancouver Trades and Labour
Council, the reformers persuaded voters
to eliminate the retail sale of liquor.

Prohibition proved unenforceable.
The worker lost his glass of beer, but
the wealthy ordered from outside B.C.
or bought bottles with medical
prescripuions. One Vancouver doctor
wrote 4,000 liquor prescriptions in a
month. In 1921 the government
replaced prohibition with controlled
sales in stores operated by the Liquor
Control Board.

Both organized labour and the B.C.

i

Hotels Association pressured the
government to bring back beer by the
glass, ‘without a bar’’. With the
approval of the voters, the LCB licensed
the city’s first hotel beer parlours in
1925. They sold draft beer for 10¢ a
glass.

Working people again had a place to
drink, but the beer parlour was not a
saloon. No standup bar was permitted;
patrons sat at tables and purchased
from a waiter. Owners could not sell
soft drinks, food or cigarettes, or offer
entertainment of any kind. Advertising
was at first forbidden, but the LCB later
relented, and the parlours soon posted
small ‘licensed premises” signs. The
removal of the varied attractions of
saloons left patrons with little to do but
drink. According to a former parlour
worker, you were not to enjoy yourself,
but to ‘“‘sit down, shut up and drink
your beer.”

Women were not allowed to serve
beer. Initially they were not even
allowed in parlours; by a ‘‘gentlemen’s
agreement” the B.C. Hotels Association
and the LCB banned women to curb
prostitution. The agreement fell apart
when some owners realized sales to
women would mean higher profits. As
a compromise Vancouver parlours
opened separate areas for “ladies and
escorts’ — unescorted women were
often treated as prostitutes by parlour
owners.

The liquor board’s concern about
prostitution became almost paranoiac
as vencreal disease rates rose in World
War I. The LCB, the board of health
and the hotels association established a
“facilitution committee” to track

infections acquired in beer parlours.
The board of health interviewed the
afflicted and sent reports to the LCB:
“(T]he alleged source of his infection
invited him to ‘sit down and have a
beer’... They went to the patient’s room
later, where the exposure occurred.
This girl received a fee of $3.00 in

What doomed
the parlours

was a change
of government

exchange for the venereal disease.”
The city’s worst offenders were the
Castle on Granville and the Grand on
Water. To minimize contact the LCB
ordered parlour owners fo erect barriers
and provide separate entrances for men
and ladies with escorts. The barriers
remained until the 1960's, though they
had little effect on disease rates.

Of greater concern to patrons during
the war was severely rationed beer.
Parlours opened only a few hours a
day, and customers complained of
glasses with more head than beer.
Many unions condemned rationing,
and some threatened to withdraw
support for war bond drives, using the
slogan ‘no beer, no bonds.” Rationing
remained, but the LCB ordered parlour
owners to mark their glasses with
white lines so the worker ‘‘got his full
glass of beer.”

For all their drawbacks, the parlours

were popular. The beer was cheap, and
unless one belonged to a club such as
the Legion, the only alternative was to
buy a case and take it home. Certain
groups associated in specific parlours.
While some CPR employees frequented
the Grand on Water Street, the Princeton
at Powell and Victoria hosted the
waterfront workers.

Attitudes toward liquor became more
liberal in post-war Canada, and by the
mid-1950's beer parlours faced
competition from cocktail lounges and
licensed restaurants. But what doomed
the parlours was a change of
government in British Columbia. After
the NDP came to power in 1972, it
tried to ‘‘civilize’’ the province's
drinking laws. To make the parlours
more attractive to women, the new
government permitted wine as a
beverage. Entertainment blossomed,
including live music and dancing.
Oddly, the government also permitted
strippers, whose presence muted
the popularity of parlours with women.
Food appeared for the first time, in
part to moderate alcohol consumption.
And one could even stand and drink.

By the mid-1970's true beer parlours
had virtually disappeared. Now called
pubs, they display huge fluorescent
signs outside and serve all types of
liquor. Many have added standup bars
with brass rails. Although some pubs
still cater to workers, they are not the
saloons of the past. The liquor board
makes sure an old saloonkeeper like
the Dutchman would miss the 24-hour
revelry of the Clarence.

Robert A. Campbell