A group of young women at the bar on board the luxury liner SS Manhattan, off New York on the day Prohibition in the United States was repealed, 5th December 1933. Before the repeal, the ship’s bar was required to close 12 miles out from the US coast. (Photo by FPG/Archive Photos/Getty Images). Photo by FPG/Archive Photos via Getty Images
This December 5th will mark the 90th anniversary of Repeal Day, the day the 21st Amendment was ratified. Thus ended Prohibition, the so-called “Noble Experiment” outlawing the sale and consumption of alcohol that lasted from 1920 (earlier in some states) to 1933. Despite the infamous loopholes for “prescriptive” purposes which helped ensure veritable lakes of illegal hooch remained in circulation, Prohibition was a massive blow to the American economy, even beyond its impact on the alcohol industry. Its effects spread to other sectors as well, including agriculture, theater (loss of revenue in concessions), trucking, even businesses like textiles. It was also deadly, killing thousands from drinking tainted spirits and giving rise to the vicious criminal syndicates connected to bootlegging. Liquor industries and consumers alike are still agonizing with the abstruse three-tier, state-by-state (and in some instances, county-by-county) distribution system that was put in place when legal sale of alcohol resumed. Also, for some reason, some drinkers still think a bar with passwords and a byzantine system of entry is an alluring concept. Yet the date remains a cause for celebration around the country, inspiring cocktail parties and even piñatas
