PROHIBITION END OF AN ERA

May 10, 1924, marks the 100th anniversary of the end of Prohibition in Alberta. This is the theme of this year’s festival, marking the end of the era of Crowsnest Pass's rum-running heritage.

It’s hard to imagine life when our grandparents and great-grandparents were youngsters. 1915, the world was at war, and society was poised for big changes. The push for women’s rights was behind a temperance movement which saw alcohol as destructive to society and Christian family life. With many men of drinking age away serving in the trenches, provincial plebiscites on banning the sale and consumption of alcohol, called Prohibition, were successful in Alberta, Manitoba and Ontario in 1916 and in British Columbia, Saskatchewan, New Brunswick and Newfoundland in 1917, with other provinces following.

There was no law against producing alcoholic drinks for export, however, and this made it possible to legally produce booze that could be illegally distributed within Canada and the United States (which also had Prohibition between 1920 and 1933).

Crowsnest Pass was unique as its interconnected communities spanned two provinces. Rum running from ‘wet’ BC into ‘dry’ Alberta in 1916 continued after BC voted ‘dry’ the following year.

Some Crowsnest Pass businessmen, particularly those previously involved in legitimate liquor businesses, became rum runners – illegal importers of booze for sale to individuals or to other distributors. Their cause was helped by the fact that most in Crowsnest Pass didn’t want Prohibition and had voted against it in the plebiscite. The legal profession was ambivalent, too, with many lawyers and judges concerned about infringing personal freedoms that the drinking restrictions imposed.

Even the RCMP were reluctant to enforce the ban on alcohol, and the declaration of Prohibition was one reason that the RCMP withdrew its policing services from Alberta to be replaced by the province’s own police force. The Alberta Provincial Police was formed in 1917, but many of its first members were not issued transportation, firearms or even uniforms. The APP policed Alberta until 1932. Initially, rum running proceeded with little difficulty, and citizens in Crowsnest Pass and other parts of Alberta found it easy to get a drink or a bottle. There were many loopholes, including ‘medicinal’ alcohol prescriptions written by doctors who felt a shot in the evening might be beneficial to the nerves. But rum running also gave rise to organized crime, and competition between operators was sometimes violent. The Alberta Provincial Police had its own problems, with instances of bribery and incompetence helping the rum runner’s cause.

In 1920, the Sentinel Train Robbery and subsequent shootout at the Bellevue Café resulted in the death of three police officers. At the time, this was attributed to a rumour that the train robbers were planning to rob Emilio Picariello, a prominent Blairmore bootlegger, who was thought to have been on that train.

In 1922, Constable Lawson lost his life in a confrontation with bootlegger Emilio Picariello and Florence Lassandro outside the Alberta Provincial Police Barracks in historic downtown Coleman. After a controversial trial, they were convicted of his murder and hanged in May of 1923.

These tragic and violent events shocked the Alberta and Canadian public and were a factor in the ending of the prohibition of the sale of alcohol in Alberta. On May 10, 1924, Alberta liquor laws were changed to allow the sale of liquor at government-owned stores.