Nova Scotia plans to take the plunge, end ‘dry’ areas
Province moves to shed prohibition past
Four times since 1969 the people of Baddeck, N.S., have voted on whether to allow drinking establishments in their lakeside village, and every time they chose to stay dry.
But Eddie Keeling, chairman of the village commission, thinks Baddeck’s 800 residents are ready to take the plunge.
“I’m not a taker of spirits at all myself,” Keeling said in a telephone interview Tuesday, “so it doesn’t mean anything to me. But to some people who are trying to make a living from the tourist trade, it would mean a lot to add a little nightlife and a bar.”
The change could be coming soon for Baddeck and 104 other dry areas across Nova Scotia as the province that mythologizes its rum-running past moves to end a holdover from the days of prohibition.
Since taverns were first legalized in Nova Scotia in 1948, provincial law has required that a plebiscite be held to determine if a town wishes to allow them within its boundaries.
Thirsty Haligonians were first to belly up to the bar, voting 66 per cent in favour of allowing taverns on July 19, 1948. In total, there have been 277 such votes, with one-third of them in favour of staying dry. (Some small rural areas have never held a vote.) In the last 12 years, however, the votes have all been to go wet, and voter turnout has been low. A 2013 plebiscite in Advocate, N.S., drew just 30 of 136 eligible voters, with all of them voting to go wet. The process cost the government $6,452.
The government department responsible has decided the plebiscites are a waste of time and money.
“It’s just an impediment to businesses opening. It’s a lot of red tape,” said John MacDonald, executive director of the province’s Alcohol, Gaming, Fuel and Tobacco division. “To go through process of holding a plebiscite is very time-consuming and costly. We’re looking at cutting down the cost and getting out of the face of business when we don’t need to be there.”
MacDonald said the remaining dry areas are mostly in rural areas, and news of their existence comes as a surprise to many Nova Scotians. “I think a lot of people are saying this moves us into the 21st century,” he said. “We haven’t really heard anything negative so far.”
As it is, the so-called dry areas can get a little damp. Restaurants can seek approval to serve alcohol as long as it is accompanied by a meal. Liquor stores can be approved through a separate plebiscite process, and there are just 60 areas that have not approved store sales of alcohol. Legion halls and service clubs can sell alcohol to their members.
Still, the heavy restriction on alcohol sales has persisted longer than anywhere else in Canada. University of New Brunswick — Saint John history professor Greg Marquis said that should not come as a surprise, despite the tradition of rollicking East Coast drinking songs.
“Historically, the Maritimes was one of the strongholds of temperance and prohibition,” he said. “We actually drink less than almost anyone else in Canada, and it’s always been the case. The image of the hard-partying, happy-go-lucky Maritimer is almost a typecasting done by outsiders, and even internally.”
Nova Scotia voted to end a decade of prohibition in 1929, opening the door to sales in a government monopoly of liquor outlets. It would be another 19 years before public drinking establishments were approved.
Marquis said the influence of the Baptist and United Churches, which frowned upon drinking, played a role in restraining drinking once it was legalized. “But it’s also sheer economics,” he said. “Maritimers didn’t have the money to spend on booze.”
MacDonald said his department’s proposal is to pass legislation next year declaring the whole province wet. It would then be up to municipalities to pass bylaws if they wish to keep bars or liquor stores out. A parallel proposal would allow restaurants to serve up to two drinks to a customer without the requirement of a meal purchase.
Keeling, 78, said he remembers the last plebiscite in Baddeck in 1985, when the people voted 390-243 to stay dry. Older residents worried bars would attract troublemaking youth, he said, but time has proven the fears to be exaggerated.
“There’s not a community across our nation that doesn’t have some sort of drinking establishment,” he said. “They have them everywhere across the world, so why should a little village like this be any different.”