Leisure, Liquor and Control: Negotiating recreation in the beverage rooms of post‐prohibition Ontario, 1927–1939

Abstract

Prior to the First World War, the saloon had been the traditional site of the blending of alcohol consumption and other leisure activities, much to the dismay of temperance and rational recreation reformers. Theoretically, by banishing the saloon, legislated prohibition severed that connection, creating the opportunity for the relationship between drinking and other leisure activities to be reconceptualised. The end of prohibition in Ontario, Canada, ushered in a new era of government liquor control under the Liquor Control Board of Ontario (LCBO). These liquor control efforts sought to balance the imperative of social order with the demands of the consumer. Public drinking after 1934 was permitted only in the beverage rooms and dining rooms of Standard Hotels, and few other recreational activities could accompany them. In licensed hotels, gaming, gambling, music, and dancing were all scrutinised and either banned or closely monitored. The LCBO enforced a vision of drinking that reiterated a vision of the public drinking space as a community meeting place, while simultaneously separating immoderate drinking from other forms of recreation.