Prohibition

during the prohibition years in the USA, was ALL alcohol banned, such as wine, beer, whiskey etc? if so, what did people drink instead when out enjoying themselves as they would today?

did clubs run by the mafia serve such drink to their customers? if so, how often did the police or feds come round looking for it?

thanks in advance!
mick

I think all alchohol was forbidden. It was supposed to "stop" crime, but it had exactly the opposite effect. It gave the mafia an extra boost. I'm not sure what people drank when there was no alchol avaible. A lot of bars served alchohol, I don't know whn the cops came to check it, every few months, maybe. During the prohibition there were some really advanced systems developed, for instance: when the cops would come in with a search-warrant, they could let the bar with all the alchoholic drinks be "turned", that all alchohol would fall into a big pipe and the alchohol shells would be turned around again, so they would be empty.

If you want more info I would recommend you a documentary by discovery channel: Rise And Fall Of The Mob

from all the movies on it i've seen they have only mentioned liquor. I never saw them mention beer or anything else. Try google search.

The Volstead Act (the 18th Amendment popularly known as "Prohibition") banned any beverage over 0.5% alcohol. It made the manufacture, transport, and sale of these beverages illegal.

The majority of the drinking public still drank booze, whether it was cheaply "homemade" or imported illegally.

thanks guys. so, just to clarify: there was drink still available in bars at this time? SC, was serving drinks less than 0.5% legal?

mick

Yes, there was. And ofcourse, practicly all of them had more than 0.5% alchohol.

"Want a Scotch? Pre-war." Bruno Tattaglia

Note what SC said: the Volstead Act prohibited the manufacture, transport and sale of alcoholic beverages, not the consumption of same. Thus, if a bar or "speakeasy" was raided, the patrons were simply rousted, not arrested; only the bartender and/or owners would be prosecuted (assuming there was any prosecution). There were some exemptions: "sacremental wine" for use in religious observances was legal (in limited quantities), and individuals could get whiskey from drugstores if they had a doctor's prescription. Few Americans took Prohibition seriously, and not many law enforcement agencies did, either. The US Federal Government had fewer than 100 agents enforcing Prohibition. Many state and local police chiefs refused to order their forces to enforce Prohibition because they saw it as another source of corruption--which it was, in unprecedented amounts. Prohibition put organized crime on the map in America. Before Prohibition, organized crime was small-time and local. Prohibition was inherently big-time, and regional, national, even international. The money generated by Prohibition enabled gangsters to bribe everyone up and down the political chain--even the Attorney General of the US in the Harding Administration.

one good source of the Prohibition was the dvd of Mafia History of the Mob in America. Joseph Kennedy, the father of JFK was a partner of the Mafia's in the Alchohol business during the prohibition. this is were they made their fortune, but only very few people knew this(at that time). he was always in the horseracing placing bets, he was a high roller. there was a party in the school of JFK and they provided the drinks courtesy of his father which was illegal at that time. another movie in the prohibition years was Once Upon a Time in America. . .

GoodFella

great additional insight, Turnball and Oggie. thanks!

mick

Dutch Schultz I think didtributed only beer. He also ran a bunch of speakeasies all over new york city.

Dutch Schultz was the "Beer Baron" at that time. . .

GoodFella

Yes, Dutch Schultz and Owney Madden were NYC's beer barons. After the Volstead Act was repealed, Schultz tried to muscle in on the numbers rackets in Harlem. Charlie Luciano had him killed later because Schultz was planning to assassinate special prosecutor Thomas E. Dewey--even though Dewey also was investigating Luciano and soon after put him away for a 35-year term.

As depicted in the recent film HOODLUM, with Tim Roth and Andy Garcia.

That film pisses me off Plawrence, because it's such a good cast and the parts are played fantastically as Garci as Luciano and Tim Roth is excellent as Shultz. But the film itself is very poor.

Very poor. It's too bad that a first-rate actor like Lawrence Fishburn got caught up in that mess.
BTW: he was all of 14 years old when he appeared in "Apocalypse Now."

I liked that movie. I guess cause its one of two movies that had Dutch Schultz in them, and the other one, cotton club, wasnt all that great.

Campaign to save whisky warehouse in Scotland once used by American Mafia during Prohibition http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profil...arehouse-in-scotland-once-used-by-americ