An Innovation from Across the Line: The American Drinker and Liquor Regulation in Two Ontario Border Communities, 1927-1944

Abstract

This essay examines the perceptions of American drinkers in Ontario border communities as discussed in the records of the Liquor Control Board of Ontario. It argues that Americans in the regulatory discourse of the LCBO represented “the other,” a stereotype of improper drinking behaviour leading to immorality and social disorder. While beverage-room proprietors courted the American drinker, the LCBO was wary of the American presence in border communities. Americans represented a pressure to violate the laws. With Americans came social disorder. This perception was not simply bred from anti-Americanism, however. Instead, this essay argues that the othering of Americans came from the perceived links between affluence and decadence. The American other in the liquor regulatory discourse was a distinctly different being than, and a decidedly serious threat to, the idealized Canadian.