Liquor-saturated Ottawa risks more `accidents and sorrow'

A regular weekly look-back at some offbeat or interesting stories that have appeared in the Citizen over its 175-year history.

When five of the six Ottawa establishments that were seeking liquor licences had their applications granted in 1957, the story was front-page news.

The last two to be awarded, according to the Citizen's Sept. 16, 1957 edition, were the RCMP Curling Association, adjacent to the Rockcliffe Air Base, and the Riverside Hotel, on Riverside Drive in Overbrook.

Earlier in the year, the Beacon Arms Hotel, the Prescott Hotel and the Albion Hotel all had their applications approved.

The only application among the six that was rejected was for a hotel that was still in its planning stages.

“City Has 61 Spots To Drink” headlined the story, which went on to break down the 61 by licence types.

There were 22 hotels, 17 public houses, 11 social clubs, seven taverns, two restaurants and two veterans' or labour clubs.

(By way of comparison, there are currently more than 800 licensed establishments in Ottawa, including approximately 580 restaurants and bars, 23 hotels, eight military facilities, two hair salons and two funeral homes.)

News of the most recent approvals was, according to the Citizen, “received with some dismay by anti-liquor forces here today.”

Mrs. Evelyn Christie, local president of the Women's Christian Temperance Union, said she was “very disappointed.

“It seems that they (the LCBO) are just giving them out right and left,” she said.

“There is no doubt about it, more outlets mean more drinking, and the more drinking the more accidents and sorrow,” Christie added.

First United Church minister Rev. H. M. Rae, meanwhile, who attended the licence hearing the previous May to express his opposition, again voiced his dissatisfaction.

“There doesn't seem to me much use in protesting to the city or to anyone else,” he said. “It is very disturbing to learn that more outlets are to be established here for Ottawa is already more liquor-saturated than any other community in Ontario.”

A story on Page 3 of the same paper indicated some similar opinions held on the opposite side of the Ottawa River, where eight of the 10 Roman Catholic parish priests based their Sunday sermons that week on the “inadequacy and lack of enforcement” of Quebec's liquor laws, noting that one liquor or beer vending permit had already been issued for every 500 Hull residents.

“We must deplore the grant of another tavern licence in Hull,” read the opening prepared text of the sermon, “even though there are more liquor and beer dispensing units than are necessary to assure an honest service to the population.”

The executive of Hull's Morality League, meanwhile, had already written a letter to Quebec Premier Maurice Duplessis, asking that the most recent tavern licence issued be immediately revoked.