Botel Beer Parlodrs: Regulating Public Drinking And
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BOTEL BEER PARLODRS: REGULATING PUBLIC DRINKING AND DECENCY IN VANCOUVER, BRITISH COLUMBTA, 1925-1954 Robert Allan Campbell M.A., University of British Columbia, 1978 THESIS SUBMZTTED IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY in the Department of History m~obertA. Campbell 1998 SIMON FRASER UNIVERSITY September 1998 Al1 rights reserved. This work may not be reproduced in whole or in part, by photocopy or other means, without permission of the author. National tibrary Bibliothèque nationale du Canada Acquisitions and Acquisitions et Bibliographic Services services bibliographiques 395 Wellington Street 395, rue Wellington OttawaON K1AON4 OttawaON K1A ON4 Canada Canada The author has granted a non- L'auteur a accordé une licence non exclusive licence ailowing the exclusive pexmettant B la National Lfirary of Canada to Bibliothèque nationale du Canada de reproduce, loan, distriiute or seil reproduire, prêter, distribuer ou copies of this thesis in microfonn, vendre des copies de cette thèse sous paper or electronic formats. la forme de microfiche/nlm, de reproduction sur papier ou sur format électronique. The author reîaîns ownership of the L'auteur conserve la propriété du copyright in this thesis. Neither the droit d'auteur qui protège cette thése. thesis nor substantiai extracts fiom it Ni la thèse ni des extraits substantiels may be printed or otherwise de celle-ci ne doivent être miprimés reproduced without the author's ou autrement reproduits sans son permission. autorisation, iii This dissertation examines the regulation of licensed public drinking in Vancouver, British Columbia between 1925 and 1954. It is based on a variety of archiva1 sources including diverse state documents (especially those of the Liquor Control Board), union records, and tha papers of temperance and refonn groups. In methodological terms, the dissertation blends material and discursive approaches to social history. Little historical work has been done in Canada on public ârinking after prohibition. With the return of drinking in British Columbia, former hotel saloons were transformed into hotel beer parlours. The first ones opened in Vancouver in 1925, ana only in 1954 àid tne government allow new venues of public drinking. Catering ta a working-class clientele, beer parlours regulated class, gender and sexuality, and race. Yet rather than an exarnple of social control, parlour regulation is better understood as moral regulation. Many scholars have become disenchanted with social control. It implies a linear process that emphasizes the actions of the state, allied elites, and reactive resistance iv to them. Social historians seeking more flexible analytical tools have adopted a moral regulation approach. Moral regulation refers to a process of normalization, the attempt to render natural and obvious what is actually constructed and contested. From this perspective regulation involves many actors, including those being regulated. mile beer parlour regulation certainly embraced coercion and resistance, it went beyond them. Parlour regulation was both informed by and produced particular kinds of knowledge about decency and public drinking. Contests over knowledge partly explain why regulation changed in the 1950s, and middle-class cocktail lounges emerged as the site of decent drinking. Moreover, the state also produced knowledge, and that, along with more coercive techniques, helped maintain its influential role in regulation. One does not return ta school at mid-career and in middle-age without some trepidation. Many people helped to make the transition easier and the experience rewarding. ~t Simon Fraser University 1 want to thank Allen Seager for originally opening the door to me. Ian Dyck, Mark Leier, and Joy Parr stretched my mind and made me realize how, in the best sense of the word, ignorant 1 was. My senior supervisor, Tina Loo, has impeccable professional credentials, but she also knows how to combine encouragement, fimess, and humour. My colleagues at Capilano College were al1 supportive, but I particularly want to thank Towser Jones. She picked up the pieces that 1 dropped and rarely asked when I was going to return. 1 also want to acknowledge the leaves, both paid and unpaid, that the college granted me. Yet the biggest debts 1 owe are to my wife, Janet Souther. She paid the bills while I read books. More important, though, she never doubted the worthiness of my undertaking nor my ability to complete it. Sometimes 1 had trouble with both, and 1 relied on her a great deal. TABLE OF CONTENTS Acknowledgements .....................cc....................v Table Contents. One: Building Bridges: hiblic Drinking, Regulation, and the Social History of Alcohol.., ..........-O .-.** .--1 Two: Working Drinkers and Drinking Workers: Class and Regulation ...............-----...F--.-.*-...-......46 Three: Ladies and Escorts: Regulating Gender and Sexuality ....................................... --.9S Four: Appearance and Performance: Constructing and Regulating Race*.. ................................ 147 Five: Reconfiguring Decency: The Politics of Regulation ...................................... -*189 Six: Managing the Marginal: Beer Parleurs, the State, and Regulation ..............-...........-........-....227 Chapter One Building Bridges: Public Drinking, Regulation, and the Social History of Alcohol At ten cents a glass, the beer in a Vancouver parlour was reasonably priced. That glasç, however, was tied to a variety of regulations designed to shape the behaviour and attitudes of those who sat and drank. Predictably, and with mixed results, working-class patrons attempted to avoid or alter the regulations. Yet much of the power of regulation went beyond rules and resistance, for in its web were enrneshed not only the regulated but also the regulators, a group that included more than çtate officiais. Parlour workers and operators were important because they both enforced and endured regulation. This dissertation analyzes the regulation of licensed public drinking in Vancouver through an examination of hotel beer parleurs, Beverage alcohol in hotel saloons had been outlawed during prohibition. Licensed public àrinking returned ta British Columbia in 1925 in the form of hotel beer parlotxrs, They held sway until 1954 when a new Government Liquor Act provided for additional venues of 2 public drinking, rnost notably cocktail lounges. I argue that parlour regulation is better understood as moral regulation rather than as an example of social control. Let me briefly explain why. First, state officiais did attempt to impose what 1 cal1 the discourse of decency on working-class drinkers. Patrons were expected to sit quietly at tables and drink only nioderate amounts of beer, and patrons often resisted those expectations. Yet the complexity of class relations inside the parlours challenges simple notions of regulation as the imposition of state-directed control. Parlour workers and operators were charged with much of regulatory enforcement, and they had their own interests and priorities. Sometimes those interests dovetailed with those of state; often they diverged. Patrons, too, had diverse ideas of what constituted decent behaviour. From the staters point-of-view the results of regulation were mixed, uneven, and even contraàictory. Moreover, if we look closely at parlour regulation, much more than class and beer were at wark. The decent parlour was also one in which patrons, workers, and operators adhered to dominant norms about gender, sexuality, and race. Parlour decency was both informed by these norms and attempted to re- inscribe them. Yet the reinscription of the values of the dominant needs to be seen more broadly than coercion conveys. While parlour regulation certainly embraced coercion and resistance, it went beyond them. Beer parlour regulation was both infomed by and produced particular kinds of knowledge about public drinking. Here "knowledgeM does not refer to given information or truth, but to a contested process of ordering reality. The discourse of decency was infoned by and reinforced knowledge about class, gender, sexuality, and race. Yet this knowledge of public drinking is also important for two other reasons. First, contests over knowledge partly explain why the public àrinking regulation changed in the 1950s and the cocktail lounges emerged as the site of decent drinking. Second, the state also produced knowledge, and that knowledge, along with more coercive techniques, helped maintain the staters influential role in regulation. ******* For the few historias interested in the influence of alcohol in Canadian history, temperance and related issues rernain the alluring themes, Little historical work has been done in Canada on public drinking in general and public àrinking after prohibition in particu1ar.l In oz om Pro ... 1 intentionally moved beyond the dry years. As the first province in English Canada to adopt government control of liquor sales. British Columbia initiated a new direction in alcohol regulation after a brief experience with prohibition between 1917 and 1921. mon analyzed 'control" from a variety of perspectives, including public drinking, but it did not examine beer parlours comprehensively.2 My first attempt at a more systematic analysis of beer parlours was "Ladies and Escorts: Gender 'Despite the title of Cheryl Krasnick Warshls (ed.) collection, Drink in C-stoW Essava (Montreal and Kingston: McGiii-Queen1s University Press, 1993), the majority of the essays are