Prohibition comes to Steveston, again

Steveston is often touted as a quaint little fishing community in southern Richmond but few know about its shady side.

Although provincial prohibition didn't come until 1917, in the 1890s, Steveston attempted to enforce municipal prohibition. 

"This was not a law that was successful. It had unintended consequences. Mainly, that a lot of the population broke the law regularly," said Gabrielle Sharp, the Steveston Museum's co-ordinator.

On Friday night, the Steveston Museum is hosting an event to remember the old days of prohibition and share some of its history.

"There's a lot of stories about the seedy side of Steveston … it's got a very colourful history."

Sharp explains that because it was a transient town, with many  workers coming for the fishing and canning season, local authorities imposed local prohibition in an effort to clean it up.

"Pretty much immediately, that's when the bootlegging started locally."

Once the municipality realized it could not contain the drinking, it opted, in 1895, to allow for private clubs.

"The first private club was The Steveston Club. It was meant to be for recreation and mutual improvement, but it was a drinking club," said Sharp.

Two years later, in 1897, the municipality began licensing saloons.

"B.C. was probably the wettest province in Canada in the 1890s. It consumed twice the average amount of alcohol per year than the rest of Canada did. It had saloons that were open 24 hours."

Shortly after, five hotels and 20 licensed saloons popped up, says Sharp.

"This was in a town with a permanent population of about 500 people."

Drinking was the pastime

Because of the nature of the work in Steveston at the time, the visitors were mostly male.

"They didn't have families. They didn't have wives to go home to, and so, they didn't have anything to do after hours. There wasn't community centres. There wasn't, in the early days, any churches or anything that could offer alternatives in entertainment"

Many of the men came from Japan, China and parts of Europe.

"The saloons became places where you could go. You could meet people who could speak the same language you did and where you made that personal connection with people"

With Files from CBC Radio One's The Early Edition.