The very first government-run liquor stores opened in Ontario nearly 100 years ago, garnering huge fanfare, hours-long lines and a healthy degree of puritanical skepticism.
Reporters chronicled the scenes in a massive spread published in The Globe and Mail on June 2, 1927, where they noted that people were mostly civilized as they waited to acquire their permits to buy alcohol, though there was some line-cutting and “police reported one drunk arrested” at a store in London, Ont. Reporters also observed with some bewilderment that women – women! – were often among those lining up to purchase alcohol, some pushing baby carriages “with the baby at home apparently” to cart their bottles home.
