Beer by the Glass: Saskatchewan Liquor Laws in the 1930s - Part 1

During Prohibition, too many people in Saskatchewan were drinking illegally, thanks to a proliferation of stills and home brew. Prohibition had also contributed to a marked increase in crime and violence. The new slogan became “Moderation.” In 1924, the Saskatchewan government repealed Prohibition, established the provincial liquor board, and implemented a new system of severe liquor control designed to limit alcohol consumption. 

Highly restrictive liquor regulations did not help to improve business at Saskatchewan’s hotels. For one thing, the Saskatchewan Liquor Act of 1924 did not allow the sale of beer by the glass in licensed premises. Hard liquor, beer and wine had to be purchased from government stores. There were only two places that people were allowed to drink: in their own home or in a hotel room in which they were registered. Nightly drinking parties took place in hotels, to the great annoyance of owners and other guests. 

W.W. Champ.  Family collection

W. W. (Wes) Champ, President of the Saskatchewan Hotels Association (SHA) in 1925, highlighted the problems this situation created for hotel owners.“While the liquor stores sell the desired drink and secure the profit, the onus is unpleasantly placed on the hotelmen of providing the room wherein the liquor may be consumed," Champ wrote in a statement to the press. "This is undoubtedly a complaint on the part of the hotelmen of the province that deserves the serious consideration and sympathy of all those who desire a healthy, sober community surrounded by well-kept hotel establishments.” The SHA circulated a petition in 1928 asking for legislation permitting beer parlours, or at least a plebiscite to determine the will of the electorate, and got 70,000 signatures. Premier James. G. Gardiner’s government denied the petition. (H.G. Bowley, A Half Century of Hospitality; The Story of the Hotels Association of Saskatchewan, 1906-1956, Regina, 1957)

When the Depression hit in 1929, Saskatchewan’s hotels drifted into debt and decline. As the Depression deepened in the 1930s, hotel keepers, like everyone else in the province, struggled to scrape by. They were unable to replace deteriorating furniture and equipment, or to renovate their shabby premises. Often, taxes went unpaid. Then, in 1935, the government finally introduced the sale of beer by the glass, providing a welcome source of revenue and some relief for the hotel business. 

Saskatchewan Hotel Association ad in the Regina Leader-Post, June 16, 1934.

 

Temperance ad in the Regina Leader-Post, June 16, 1934.

The SHA had managed to achieve this major concession from Premier J.T.M. Anderson’s government in 1934. A plebiscite was held during the provincial election in June which asked the question: “Are you in favor of the sale of beer by the glass in licensed premises?” A large front-page newspaper ad was placed by the SHA stating that “Bootlegging, Law Breaking, Secret Drinking, Respect for the Law, Increased Revenue for the Government – which can be accomplished by voting for the Sale of Beer on Licensed Premises.” An advertisement by the Moderation League of Saskatchewan stated, “If you have the interest of the youth of the Province at heart, vote for the sale of beer by the glass.” The plebiscite carried by 30,130 votes. The final count was: Yes - 191,722; No - 161,592. Half the majority was from Regina and Saskatoon; many rural areas voted against it. (Regina Leader-Post, June 28, 1934, p.1)

Forbidden to Sell Anything But Beer
 
The government wrestled for weeks with the framing of the new liquor act and resolutions. In the end, the rules established for beer parlours seemed designed to make them as unattractive as possible. Customers could drink only while seated, unlike in the old-time taverns. They could not carry their drinks between tables. On January 22, 1935, Omer Demers, MLA for Shellbrook, pointed out to the Legislature that, “We used to stand up and drink and when we had enough we knew enough to leave. Now we sit down and don’t know when we’ve had enough.” (Regina Leader-Post, Jan. 22, 1935, p.8) There could be no meals or sale of food, no sale of soft drinks, no dancing, no musical instruments, no playing cards, no slot machines, and no entertainment of any kind in beer parlours. The only thing they could sell in these cheerless places was beer. Women could neither work in, nor patronize, the province's beer parlours [see separate blog post]. Liquor board inspectors were sent out to watch for violations. 

By April, hundreds of Saskatchewan hotels were applying for liquor licenses. The SHA said that, out of its 480 members, 80 – mainly Chinese hotel owners – would not be able to qualify. (Regina Leader-Post, Mar. 12, 1935, p. 1) Chinese were excluded because the law required that the applicant for a liquor license had to be a person who was entitled to vote. The Chinese in Saskatchewan did not receive the provincial franchise until 1947.

New beer parlour at the Maymont Hotel, c.1935.  From Sod to Solar (1980)

"Spigots spouted suds in 22 Saskatchewan hotels on Thursday [May 2, 1935], and draft beer became legal again for the first time in 20 years," the Regina newspaper stated."Not since 1915 has beer by the glass been legal in a public way in this province." (Leader-Post, May 2, 1935, p. 1) 

In order to take advantage of this new turn of events, hotels had to spend money to build or fix up their beer parlours. The government had set rigorous architectural standards before licenses would be issued to sell beer. Only hotels that had a minimum number of guest rooms and adequate dining rooms for guests could be licensed. Most of the hotel keepers went further into debt, but it was hoped that, with the added revenue, they would be able to carry on. 

Local Option Vote

A big obstacle for many small-town hotels was the question of “local option.” The new legislation

Saskatoon Star-Phoenix, November 21, 1935

passed on January 22, 1935, allowed communities to vote on whether or not they wanted a beer parlour in their local hotel. In Carlyle, controversy raged for weeks over whether or not Jim Anderson should be allowed to apply for a beer parlour license for the Arlington Hotel. In the end, 123 voted Yes and only 7 voted No. “One old timer chuckled [that] he couldn’t find one solitary person who admitted to a ‘yes’ vote so he could never figure out where the majority came from,” the Carlyle history records (Prairie Trails to Blacktop Carlyle and District, 1882-1982). Redvers was one of the few towns that defeated the local option vote. The hotel closed, and the owner had to wait three years before he could reapply for a license. In 1939, the town voted in favour of a license, and, with the revenue from the beer parlour, the Redvers Hotel was able to start making improvements and upgrading its facilities. (Redvers, 75 Years Live, 1980) Saskatchewan’s hotel industry did not fully recover, however, until the return of better economic conditions after the start of the Second World War. 

© Joan Champ 2011

Hot Times in Ceylon: The North West Hotel

North West Hotel in Ceylon, 1912. Source

For a couple of years during the Roaring Twenties, a decade before Bonnie and Clyde and John Dillinger, gangs of bank robbers terrorized small towns along the Saskatchewan-Montana border. The son of the owner of the North West Hotel in Ceylon, Saskatchewan, is reputed to have been a member of one of these gangs. 

Billy Coffron, aka "Little Billy." Salt Lake Telegram, Dec. 6, 1923

On September 26, 1922, Billy Coffron, son of William J. Coffron and his wife Catherine (Cassie), was very likely one of the gang of bandits that blew open the vault of the Bank of Montreal in Ceylon, making off with $7,000 in cash, securities and bonds. According to Ceylon’s local history book, Builders of a Great Land (1980), the bank robbers had hopped into a get-away car, fired a rifle into the air “as a parting shot of glee and triumph,” and sped south through the Big Muddy and down into the United States. 

Illustration by Don Anderson from James Gray, "Cops and Robbers in the Roaring Twenties," Windsor Star, May 10, 1975.

After building and operating a couple of hotels in Minnesota, the Coffrons moved to Ceylon district of Saskatchewan in 1907 and filed on a homestead which was operated by 19-year-old Billy. Located 110 km due south of Regina,  Ceylon had its beginnings – like most prairie towns – with the construction of the railway through the district in 1910. Seeing an opportunity, the Coffrons moved to Ceylon in 1911 and built the North West Hotel on the corner of Main Street and 1^st Avenue, across the street from the Bank of Montreal. The $25,000 hotel opened on the evening of December 25, 1911; the following day, it burned to the ground.

Fire at the North West Hotel, December 26, 1911. From Builders of a Great Land (1980)

The fire started in a small building next door to the hotel and spread quickly. There was no firefighting equipment in Ceylon, so little could be done to battle the blaze. “People do strange things in times of excitement and this was evident the day of the fire,” Ceylon’s history book, Builders of a Great Land, states, “Townspeople and hotel occupants carried bedding and mattresses down the stairs and threw china basins and pitchers out of the windows to the frozen ground below.” Mildred Stephenson, the first baby born in the newly incorporated village, was born in the hotel the night of the fire. The Stephenson family lived in the hotel, where Mr. Stephenson worked. Mrs. Stephenson went into labour just as the hotel was being consumed by flames. She was moved into a little shack behind the hotel which was sprayed with water to keep it from burning while Mildred was being born.

Coffron rebuilt the North West Hotel in 1912 on the same foundation. It had 47 rooms. He and Cassie ran and excellent dining room and the bar was always busy. A story is told about a certain Irishman who had a few too many drinks at the hotel bar and was creating a disturbance. “Mr. Coffron got him upstairs and handcuffed him to the bedstead,” the history book recounts. “Before long, he was coming down the stairs carrying the bedstead with him.”

William Coffron (far right) at the bar of the first North West Hotel, 1911. From Builders of a Great Land (1980)

Lobby of the North West Hotel, 1912.  From Builders of a Great Land (1980)

Bill and Cassie Coffron, n.d.

In an attempt to curtail incidents such as this, the government of Saskatchewan introduced Prohibition in 1915. The bar of the North West Hotel in Ceylon was closed, and in its place the Coffrons set up the town’s first movie theatre. There was no money to be made without the bar, however, so, according to the town’s history book, the hotel was temporarily sold to “the Bromptons” who used the hotel as a cover for bootlegging during Prohibition. This was, in fact, the infamous Bronfman family which built its huge fortune from the liquor business during Prohibition. 

The Bronfmans had a string of “boozoriums” or liquor supply depots in communities along the Saskatchewan-North Dakota border from which American customers could purchase liquor. Because Ceylon was located 50 km north of the border, a boozorium was operated in the town – quite likely out of the North West Hotel. Whiskey from the Bronfman family’s distillery in Yorkton was shipped to safe storage in Ceylon and other border towns. Under cover of night, well-armed men in big cars arrived to haul the booze south along well-worn trails to U.S. customers. 

Booze begat violence. On September 27, 1922, the residents of Ceylon were awakened by the explosion that opened the Bank of Montreal's vault to the gang of thieves. One theory was that the thieves knew the bank’s vault would contain the proceeds of the boozorium. Billy Coffron, who often hung out at his parents’ hotel across the street from the bank, may have had some inside information. According to James Gray’s book, The Roar of the Twenties (1975), “The Ceylon robbery was especially noteworthy because the robbers not only took off with all the cash on hand, they took a large folder filled with promissory notes, mortgages, and sundry other securities for debt. It was the greatest single debt adjustment act in Saskatchewan history for it reduced the indebtedness of the entire community to zero.”

On November 28, 1923 at Havre, Montana, detectives employed by several bankers' associations arrested Billy Coffron, Roy Hauger, and "Doc" Walkup, all from Ceylon. The three Canadians were charged with robbing the Bank of Montreal in Ceylong and the Union Bank at Moosomin in 1922; a bank at Dollard, Saskatchewan in 1923; and several banks in the States. According to the Regina Leader-Post, Billy's mother travelled to Havre in early December and secured counsel for her son's trial. She must have found sharp defense lawyers, for on July 15, 1924, the Leader-Post reported that Billy had been freed on all charges and was returning home to Ceylon. He claimed that he had been railroaded by the police.

The 1926 Canada census shows Billy Coffron residing on the family homestead near Ceylon. His parents were still operating the North West Hotel in town. They sold the hotel, which still stands today on the corner of Main and 1^st, in 1927.

The Ceylon Hotel today.From www.saskschools.ca/~pangman/communit/rmtown/ceylon/

© Joan Champ 2011

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