Book: Review/Commentary: Sit down and Drink Your Beer: Regulating Vancouver's Beer Parlours, 1925–1954

Sit Down and Drink Your Beer: Regulating Vancouver's Beer Parlours, 1925-1954, by Robert A. Campbell (Toronto, Buffalo, London: University of Toronto Press, 2001), 192 pp./20 illustrations, cloth Can$50; paper Can$19.95. Vancouver's beer parlors were opened following the repeal of a brief (four-year) war-related prohibition. They were, for many years, the only public drinking establishments accessible to ordinary working men (mainly) and women. Concerns that these parlors might come to resemble the discredited preprohibition saloons led to a variety of regulations that governed the behavior and attitudes of those who came in to drink. These regulations encompassed not only drinking and related behaviors but also the class, gender, sexuality, age, and even citizenship of patrons. Sit Down and Drink Your Beer, a scholarly yet accessible and often entertaining book, tells how these regulations were variously enforced by state inspectors and supported, ignored, or subverted by owners, operators and clients. More importantly, it shows how the regulatory process was not simply a top-down process whereby the state and elites sought to control working-class drinking, but a more complex and de-centered process involving various actors in discourses about notions of normality and decency. The book has seven chapters, including an introduction and outline. The first main chapter gives a brief account of prohibition and the pre-prohibition saloons that were so greatly reviled by prohibitionists. This chapter also outlines the origins of the beer parlors and the regulations that were supposed to ensure that they would not simply become saloons by another name. These regulations were enforced by a regulatory board and by inspectors who sometimes worked undercover. The police and public health officials were also much concerned about compliance, and the media delighted in tales of corruption and debauchery. However, the day-to-day responsibilities for ensuring compliance with the regulations rested with the operators and The second chapter focuses on the beer parlor operators and the beer parlor workers' union. It begins by drawing attention to the case of the retiring president of the hotels association being made an honorary member of the union, whose official goal was to stop the exploitation of the workers. This case supports the author's thesis that the regulation of alcohol involves complex relationships among different social classes. Although bounded by relationships grounded in class, workers, operators, union and employers were also linked by the demands of regulation and the need for profits and safe working environments. Chapter three, Ladies and Escorts, considers the regulation and negotiation of gender and sexuality. Initially women were excluded from the beer parlors, but later they were allowed in partitioned ladies-and-escort sections, and some bars became popular with lesbians. However, single women were often suspected of being prostitutes, and during World War II prostitutes working in bars were (erroneously) accused of making a significant contribution to the spread of venereal disease. …

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