What Endures When Laws Change: Tracing Michigan’s Alcohol Policy From 1774 To Now

We trace Michigan’s liquor laws from 1774 merchant rules to modern regulation, showing how taverns, quotas, Sunday bans, and “forever” prohibition shaped today’s safeguards. The throughline is simple: protect public welfare while supporting responsible commerce.

• 1770s Detroit merchant rules and self-imposed fines
• Early territorial licenses, fees, and local enforcement
• 1838 reforms on credit, intoxication, Sunday sales
• Location-specific premises and the meaning of “tavern”
• Restrictions near churches and the short-lived on-premises ban
• Township welfare protections and spendthrift limits
• Local option, dry counties, and failed early prohibition
• Oddities: cemetery buffers, crackers and pretzels, ad bans with ex-presidents
• Quotas tied to population and standard hours
• 1916 “forever” prohibition and 1932 repeal
• Birth of the Liquor Control Commission and control-state model

The MLCC On The Road podcast is brought to you by the Michigan Liquor Control Commission (MLCC). For more information on the MLCC, please visit our website at www.michigan.gov/lcc. To submit a question or idea for a podcast topic, please email mlccinfo2@michigan.gov.

The mission of the Michigan Liquor Control Commission is to make alcoholic beverages available for consumption while protecting the consumer and the general public through regulation of those involved in the sale and distribution of these alcohol beverage products.

Chapters

• 0:00 Why History Still Shapes Today’s Rules
• 1:50 Pre‑Revolution Detroit Liquor Controls
• 5:50 Early Licenses, Fees, And Self‑Regulation
• 10:45 Taverns, Churches, And On‑Premise Bans
• 16:20 Becoming A State And 1838 Reforms
• 22:50 Credit Limits, Minors, And Sunday Rules
• 28:10 Local Option And Early Prohibition Attempts
• 34:40 Cemeteries, Gender, And Operating Hours
• 40:10 Quotas, Dry Counties, And Odd Ads

Transcript

David Marvin: 0:00

You're listening to the MLCC On the Road Podcast, brought to you by the Michigan Liquor Control Commission, with hosts Sara Weber and David Marvin.

Sara Weber: 0:10

Welcome back to the MLCC on the Road Podcast. I'm Sara Weber, and with me is David Marvin. And today we're here to talk to you about some history.

David Marvin: 0:20

We are coming up on the 250th anniversary of the United States and our Declaration of Independence back in 1776. And so we thought it would be a good idea today to talk a little bit about Michigan history when it comes to liquor law and some of the things that have happened throughout our history as a state, even well before the United States was here. We're going to talk a little bit about the long history of alcohol regulation here in Michigan and why it's important that we know about that history and how it affects what we do even today at the Liquor Control Commission.

Sara Weber: 0:56

Speaking of this long history, do you want to give us a little bit of background on, you know, why we started looking into this a little bit more deeply and, you know, some of the things that you've been coming across and why we decided at the end of the day that this would be a great podcast topic?

David Marvin: 1:10

Many years ago, I came across a document that had a whole bunch of old liquor license references. I was looking for something that I found in a lawsuit, and I was trying to figure out what it involved. It wasn't a section of law that was currently in the liquor control code, and so I wanted to know the history of it. And so I started digging and I found this long list of references, and then it got me curious, and so I started doing a lot more digging. And eventually what I did is I put together essentially a library, they're all digital files at this point in time, of every liquor law that has been passed in Michigan, at least going back to about 1838. There's a few laws that I haven't been able to find older than that. I'd have to probably go to the National Archives to get those. But I wanted to be able to have it so that we could have a full picture so that we knew throughout the history of Michigan, even before we were a state, what ultimately uh liquor law looked like. So when we come across a reference that may still affect us today, that we would be able to have that reference. I also recently, through NABCA, which we've talked about on podcasts before, spoke at an event where we talked about the history of alcohol regulation - Michigan and North Carolina specifically - we used a couple different references there and how that still affects us today. Because at the end of the day, we gotta know our history and know where we came from so that we can make sure that we're still regulating alcohol and making it a safe product for uh our our citizens and people that are visiting here. And that really ultimately is the goal that we're we're looking at.

Sara Weber: 2:45

All right. So, do you want to start off with a few of the super early fun facts that you came across? Um, it looks like you have a few that were in place prior to the Revolutionary War that I find particularly interesting and kind of embarrassing for our history here, but you know, nonetheless, like you say, it's it's part of our history and we have to still recognize it.

David Marvin: 3:09

The pre-Revolutionary War pieces are interesting. A lot of people don't realize or don't contemplate most days that Michigan, even though we've only been a state technically since 1837, some people say 1835, but legally since 1837, that the history of Michigan goes back even much further than that. Detroit's been around for over 300 years. There's some places up in the Upper Peninsula that predate that to go back into the 1600s. The first real regulation that I could find on the books goes all the way back to 1774. So in 1774, merchants in Detroit all decided, hey, we need to we need to regulate the sale of alcohol amongst ourselves. And so they decided that instead of having different merchants selling it, they were going to put it all in one general store. And they also, and this is kind of what Sara alluded to about some of the the history of this, indicated that they would only sell one glass of alcohol to an Indian at a time. Uh, there was just some beliefs back at that time period where that , probably today, hopefully today, people don't have that, that selling alcohol to Indians was an issue and it was just an unfortunate thing that has pervaded through history. But ultimately they said, hey, we're only going to sell one glass of alcohol at a time, and then moving, and that was in 1774, and then in 1775, those those same merchants, I can't quite figure out if they decided others were going to be able to sell alcohol instead of having it just in one store. But they all came together and said, Hey, if we do sell the alcohol to Indians more than the regulations, then whoever that store is that does that would have to pay a $300 fine, which $300 in 1775 is about $12,000 today with inflation and the way things are gone up and down. So that is a significant amount of money, a significant thing that would make you think twice.

Sara Weber: 5:10

Right. And it makes you wonder at that time who who was in charge of regulating that, who enforced that, you know, you know, and that's something that we don't necessarily know, but you know, it could have been the city officials, it could have been the merchants themselves, or you know, the townsfolk, city council. But very interesting and a very steep fine. So anyone complaining about our fines today, think about what they did in 1775, because we are not even close to that.

David Marvin: 5:35

Which we joke around that that was their their self-imposed fine of $300 in 1775. For most fines today under the liquor control code, the maximum fine is $300. So uh not inflationary, I can tell you that. Um, fast forwarding a few years uh after the United States uh officially became the United States in 1795. In the city of Detroit, they actually had their first licenses for essentially a grocery store, a corner store kind of situation. And only beer and wine was allowed to be sold. And the fee for that was four dollars a year, which today is would be about $102, which I find fascinating because a specially designated merchant license today is $100. Maybe we are kind of keeping up with the times on that one. Fast forwarding a little bit further, we're still a territory, we're developing, we're getting more counties in Michigan. Uh, Michigan's expanding in 1814. The license fees in Detroit were increased from that whopping $4 to $10 a year, but the rest of the territory was only $5. So uh $10 in 1814 worked out to about $185. And so that would have been Detroit City itself, and then the rest of the territory, which included parts of Indiana and Michigan and and uh uh uh Illinois, and I'm not sure Ohio at that point. I mean, Ohio has been a state since 1805, so there may have still been some. I don't know, the lines were all ours, still kind of all over the place, but everybody else it was $5, so $92. So we're still in that kind of hundred dollar range. So I mean, I find that interesting.

Sara Weber: 7:14

I bet more than likely it was because you the population increases in those in that area, because you said that is was the sole territory for so long. So you imagine the size of or population of that area at that time, which would be interesting as well. But our our information does not go back that far at Liquor Control.

David Marvin: 7:33

Unfortunately.

Sara Weber: 7:35

But for historical purposes, maybe tracking that at one point would be interesting to see how the fees changed through history as we grew as a state.

David Marvin: 7:44

But it is fascinating to see where the the where the priorities were and and how even at that early stage there was an understanding that alcohol should be regulated and it should be regulated safely, and people who met certain qualifications should have uh licensure. And and a part of that was a fee to help administrate it. And and so that's where those fees come from. It's not just a fee just to put money in the bank for the state, it actually goes to the funding of making sure that the laws are followed. And then 1827, I found this one uh very uh interesting. It was the first reference that I could find that referenced anything with proximity of a liquor licensed establishment to a church or a school. Now, schools come in later, but at that point in time, there was a law that was enacted that said uh uh no sales of alcohol across the board could be within a mile and a half of a church. Today that law is uh 500 feet based on certain measurements, but uh 1827 uh it was a mile and a half, and so that uh that is a considerable distance compared to what we have today. The other interesting thing that I found, uh and there's another section of law that we'll talk about in a as we get a few years down the road here, uh, that's similar to this, but uh taverns. And now we think of a tavern license under current law as a license that allows you to sell beer, wine, and and uh canned cocktails uh to folks for on-premises consumption, different than our Class C license that allows for like actual spirits and cocktails. But we see that we have a license called a tavern license today, which is much different than what a tavern was back then. Back then, a tavern was essentially a hotel. It was a place where it was a motel where people were traveling. And the law in 1827 said if you were going to sell alcohol to the renters that are coming through a tavern, you had to have at least two beds. And so uh you you you couldn't just set up a tavern or a or a bar and and serve alcohol, which is something that I found really interesting throughout this. Most of the references up to a certain point in Michigan law talk specifically about when it came to on-premises consumptions, they primarily were only for taverns. There weren't a lot of saloons, as we would call them, until later on, earlier history, or at least there wasn't regulation that showed up in law. Um, so I find it that a very uh captivating thing. Most of the alcohol, at least as the law would imply, was only being sold at stores where you would buy it and then consume it on your own elsewhere. You weren't literally bellying up to the bar as the old term is, uh, where you think old timey saloons. Now that those came later, but 18 uh 27. So we're going uh hundred, hundred or two hundred years ago now at this point in time, uh things were slightly different uh when it came to that. And you also had to realize there wasn't a lot of population in Michigan. It was slowly growing around Detroit, uh, but we hadn't spread out uh very far yet. And so there wasn't that. And so there was places where uh you would see those taverns where people were traveling from point A to B. A lot of times from along the um what is now US 12, the the old Chicago Road where they were going from Detroit all the way to Chicago. And kind of in that ilk where we're talking about the on-premises versus off-premises, in 1829, and I would love to find a little bit more information on this. There was uh an ordinance passed that said that there would there was no on-premises consumption of alcohol allowed in the city of Detroit. So you couldn't have those saloons or you couldn't have a tavern even. So I'd like to know what was happening in Detroit at that point.

Sara Weber: 11:32

That would be interesting. You're talking about a span of two years where something major had to have happened to have that type of ordinance passed when you know before that it looked like it was kind of moving on, maybe expanding a little bit, and then they just shut it down.

David Marvin: 11:46

So there there must have been something there. I one day when I have all the time in the world, I will look that up. But uh, but then fast forward just a few years later, uh, five years later, uh, the liquor licenses that were in Detroit, so the ones for off-premises consumption, uh, they were raised to $100 a year. So an SDM license today costs $100, but $100 in 1834 is about the equivalent of $3,700 today. So that is a sizable amount. Again, what was happening at that point in Detroit uh in relation to alcohol, where there was something that was putting more uh more restrictions on it. Um, I don't know enough about the history of that period of time. And it uh I just that's unfortunate, and and someday I will research that.

Sara Weber: 12:40

My first inclination is there's got to be some type of organized crime that was probably going on. You know, when you start looking at later in history about you know why we started breaking off into tears and you know, regulating them differently, makes me wonder if part of this has to come down to that, you know, like because you you mentioned most of this is ignored. Yeah, you know, they didn't care, they were just doing it was the Wild West.

David Marvin: 13:04

Yeah, and that and that is the thing. Um, some of the the newspaper articles I had at the time, essentially all of it was ignored, especially the on-premises ban. They people still had their saloons, they still were selling, and probably without a license, yeah. Or they would get a license for the off-premises sales and and sell that way. So uh we we we really don't know. It's probably a very unique uh period of history that it would be something to go back and look at um to know why there was that, because there was obviously some some concerns there. 1834 is right before Michigan becomes a state on its own. So, depending on the way you ascribe to history, some people say 1835 is when we became a state, others say that the official date, and really the official date is January 26th of 1837. Though if you look at our state seal, it still has the room and numerals for 1835. Uh so that there was a uh a political convention where a bunch of people decided they were going to declare us a state, and but that did not happen until officially 1837, and and uh January 26th of 1837, uh, we became a state. And this was fascinating to me with my research because I at that point in time, Michigan was just a part of a territory. Now it was the Northwest Territory, then it became the Michigan Territory, and so there were already laws in place that the the territorial legislature had crafted. But when you start a state from scratch, what do you do? And I was captivated by this because it's not like you're just going to on January 26th say, oh, we're gonna pass all these new laws. People have opinions on things. I mean, look at politics today. No one can agree on anything. That's not no different than it was in 1837. And so what they did is they actually, any of the laws that were on the books at that point in time, some of the laws wouldn't have applied because they were specific to things dealing with territories, and there was a new legislature that was created, and so all that would have to happen. But they essentially said those laws are gonna continue on. And so whatever was liquor law at that point in time stayed liquor law. However, it wasn't too much later in 1838, so we've been a state for a whole year, that they decided, yep, we need to make some changes, we need to update our liquor laws. And they passed a section of law that put a lot of regulations in place that um that some of them actually today are still you can see those fingerprints from 1837 or 1838. Um, there was a lot more structure to what the law said at that point in time. So some of those changes uh are things that you would see today. So there were early limits on credit sales for alcohol. So you could still go into a place up to 75 cents, you could uh buy alcohol on credit. But anything over and above that was not enforceable. So if I sold you a dollar bottle of spirits and I wanted to go back to try to get that from you, the law said no, it's not enforceable. And that was essentially, uh, from my understanding of the concept back then, was so that people are paying cash for it. But what's happening is you're not having a scenario where you're becoming indebted for the sake of alcohol. If you don't have it, the money to buy it, we don't want you going into debt for that. And so that's why they had that. And then and to a certain extent, that's kind of why we still have a cash law in Michigan. There's a lot of other reasons for it too. But 1838 was kind of where that started in Michigan, and we still have that cash law. Um, also the first time that it actually spelled out in law, you can't legally sell to an intoxicated person, which seems pretty common sense today, but it was first enacted back in 1830 or 1838 in Michigan law. Sunday sales. There was the first explicit prohibition on the Sunday sales of alcohol. Now we still have that in in our law. Uh, we have several um municipalities that don't allow the Sunday sales of alcohol in some fashion, whether all day or just for off-premises sales or on-premises sales or just in the morning. And we still see that. And the one that I think is really captivating is the it was the early concept of a licensed premises being at a specific location. Something that today, uh Sara, you and I would would be baffled to have a concept that that there wasn't this address or this specific spot on an address uh was the licensed premises. It was just kind of a here's your license to sell alcohol prior to that point, as opposed to here's your license to sell alcohol at that location right there on the map. And that is something that I find very fascinating that that that came into place there. Something that today echoes now uh almost uh almost 200 years uh into the future, as we're still dealing with liquor law. Uh something that would would be a hard concept for us to wrap our heads around if we didn't have that uh today.

Sara Weber: 18:19

I also noticed on here um you indicated that this was the earliest that you could find where they had a general prohibition on serving alcohol to minors, with the caveat except to those traveling.

David Marvin: 18:31

Yes. And and I don't know what that it I it must have been you can you can sell to minors if uh if if they're on a ride with mom and dad. I don't I don't know. Or maybe there were I mean, obviously the the concept of uh of adulthood has changed over the years, and I think you looked up some interesting uh statistics on on the minor yes.

Sara Weber: 18:54

Throughout history, the um age that you become an adult is 21, and that was widely accepted across Europe, and it looks like most of the US territories and when they became states recognized that as the age that you are able to do many things, including you know, drinking. Um interestingly enough, and we laughed about this, the age to be work was 14. So you could work, but you couldn't drink.

David Marvin: 19:23

You couldn't drink. Well, and maybe there was something.

Sara Weber: 19:26

Yeah, you can get married. Yeah, and there's some states. There's there's still that, yeah. Um but you had to sign off your parents, needed to give permission. So I I find the fact that it was 21 years, except for those traveling, it kind of fits in with that vacation mentality, although back then they were not vacationing, but they were, you know, moving across state. And I can see where with parental consent, you know, they allowed stuff like that to happen.

David Marvin: 19:50

And maybe they were you probably as you said, 14 was the working age. They may have been people that were working on a on a project or traveling from point A to point B, and for whatever reason that was the Acceptable at that point in time. But fascinating. I mean, you you don't know what the what was going through the minds of the folks there. And and uh unfortunately, there's there's not a lot of documents that that we can turn to other than the final actual document that they passed. The other thing that I found really interesting um in the 1838 law, and I'm actually gonna read this, it's gonna kind of antiquated law, but it goes back to when we were talking about our tavern license today, their version of tavern licenses back then. And it says, every tavern keeper shall at all times be furnished with suitable provisions and lodging for strangers and travelers. And with stable room, hay, and provender. And I'll talk about what provender is. I had to look that one up in the dictionary. And so they have to have a stable room, hay, and provender for their horses and cattle. And if he shall not at all times be so provided, the township board may revoke his license. So the old-timey word provender is essentially whatever kind of food other than hay. I had to look that up. And so it might be oats, it might be wheat, corn, something like that, because obviously you have cattle and horses. Horses are going to want their oats or their stuff, and and cattle are gonna probably want more corn and uh things along that line. So today that would be the equivalent if you had an on-premises licensee or like a hotel, a bee hotel license, of saying not only do you have to have the rooms, which it talks about here, you also have to have a garage facility and you have to have a gas station all attached. Something that we don't expect.

Sara Weber: 21:35

Exactly. I also find it highly interesting that the word used throughout that is he.

David Marvin: 21:40

Yes.

Sara Weber: 21:41

So that implies to me that women were not allowed to own licenses, run own businesses back at that point either.

David Marvin: 21:48

Yep. And and actually uh we talk about that a little bit uh in some of our uh research that we have that we'll we'll hit on here as we keep on going, uh, about some of that. And I don't have this information here, but I know it was recent history, even under the the current law, where I say current law, since 1933, where women couldn't be bartenders. And that was repealed within the last 93 years. Uh so there has been that uh change in, and we have many women that run businesses and have liquor licenses today. And so uh that is a a fascinating change that that you uh definitely pointed out here, and we'll talk more about that uh in a little bit down here.

Sara Weber: 22:34

David, can we take a minute to go back to something that you mentioned a few minutes ago? And that was about the um credits that um a customer could not go beyond. Um, because I think that it speaks a little bit to early prevention methods um that our municipalities or you know, township people tried to put in place to protect families from um from those relatives that had issues. So can you expand on that a little bit?

David Marvin: 23:02

Yeah, actually, uh it's that 1838 law again. Again, things that are fascinating to see how stuff from there still today uh the is in place. Now, obviously, this language is sort of antiquated, and I'm not going to read it all because it's it's it's cumbersome to read to a um and to listen to as a modern uh a modern listener. Uh, but there was a section of the law that said essentially, if you as a individual, and in this reference it talks about a spendthrift, I love that that's actually in the law, the term spendthrift. You as a spendthrift, uh, drink so much that, as it says here, you misspend or lessen your estate so that you put your family at risk, so that the township, and in this point in time, the townships were real, they're the ones who had essentially a welfare system at that point in time to help out uh families in need. Ultimately, if you put yourself at risk because of that, that the township board could vote so that you specifically could be barred from going in and drinking alcohol at any licensed location. And I just think it's funny that that that they use the term spendthrift, but it's a it's an interesting concept to say, hey, we want to make sure that if we're gonna regulate alcohol, we're gonna do it in a way that it's not going to hurt families. Obviously, that was a concern at that point in time because of people that were spending so much. So we had that credit law that we talked about. So that it did it it gave a disincentive to giving people credit, uh, selling alcohol on credit. But then also we have a situation where there's a disincentive for the somebody who might be an alcoholic, somebody who has an alcohol problem from going in and spending so much that that the township can now say, hold it. If we're gonna put your face on a on a poster saying, don't serve to this person. And so obviously things have changed a lot. We don't have something along that line in the law today, but it is a actually fascinating uh uh look back of the thought process almost 200 years ago of how they were dealing with things like that. So, fast-forwarding uh about a decade, uh we hit 1845 and some laws have changed. Uh, things have already aged a little bit, and there was a push for having local government units be able to decide whether they wanted alcohol um consumption and sales. And so there was a law passed that allowed what we would call local option. It's a term that you'll hear when in regulation or in um alcohol regulations around the country. So if you ever hear the term local option, it's allowing the local government units to be able to decide. Do we want to have alcohol? Do we not? Very similar to many of the laws we have today. Um, we still have local option in a number of things. Now, under Michigan law, the current Michigan law, uh, once you've essentially said you can have alcohol and approved it, there's a lot you have to do to undo that. You would have to go completely dry. So you can't say we don't want to have grocery stores and liquor stores, but we only want to have restaurants and vice versa. But but that all stems back to the 18 uh 45 era.

Sara Weber: 26:13

It's like a foreshadowing of what was to come, I think. You know, I think you know, that after that eight thir 1838, and then going moving in, like you said, almost 10 years later, it you know, there's there's people who want their hands in it more. So that that tells you how this was progressing through history and the problems that they were having.

David Marvin: 26:33

And yeah, and and that that need for greater regulation. And to where we I mean, obviously it got to a point in the in the early 1900s where prohibition came along and and some of these things that they tried to stop as as things moved along throughout history. And fast-forwarding five years from that, there was actually a constitutional amendment. And this, I had to do some research on this because this made no sense to me at first, but then once I understood what it was, it made a lot of sense. There was a constitutional amendment that prohibited the state itself from issuing licenses for alcohol and that all licenses had to be issued locally. I'm like, what why would the state do that? And there was really a push at that point in time that if alcohol was going to be low uh uh regulated, it had to be done locally. So there was that part of it. But there was also some attitude that we don't want the state involved with benefiting from the sale of alcohol kind of surreptitiously through giving you a license. So it was a disincentive for the state to make money off of alcohol, which at first I thought it was just a local, a local option issue and they wanted it in the constitution. There was a lot of it that was sold as that. But really, what it was is there were people that just said, hey, the state shouldn't be benefiting from the sale of alcohol, which has obviously changed considerably because um the sale of alcohol right now, when it comes to spirits, is all done through uh the commission at this point in time. And we get a lot of excise taxes and we have um all of the license fees, and that goes into a variety of funds to the tune of about $650 million a year that goes back into the state coffers for schools and roads and a variety of things. So kind of a change in mentality back then. And then uh a few years later, uh the Michigan voters passed an initiative in 1853 essentially prohibiting alcohol in Michigan. It was an early prohibition across the board, but it was ruled unconstitutional a week after it was passed. I found that hilarious. That that however, whatever it was, it it really didn't meet the muster and it was ruled unconstitutional. But they took a stab at it, the the legislature did, in 1855. Uh, they passed a prohibition law, but it was just a statute, it wasn't constitutional like the constitutional amendment. And everything that I can find said it was pretty much ignored. There was alcohol everywhere, no one cared. So 1859, that same law, the legislature came along and said, eh, it's not working, so we're gonna get rid of it. They repealed it, so everything was kind of still in place. Uh, we still had all the local control and so on. State was still not issuing licenses and was still not uh really involved with it, other than having the law there uh to control a few things. Not a lot happens for about 15 years. It's just kind of quiet. Uh, I couldn't find a lot of sections of law. There's little bits and pieces of things. Uh, there was an 1869 law that we were kind of laughing about a little bit earlier, uh, just because it sounds so so antiquated. Um, and this is really not a lot in between this that I could find of substance. And and the title of the law was saloons prohibited near cemeteries. Uh, and it says, after any such corporation shall have been formed, and it's talking about a cemetery corporation, and their cemetery site shall have been purchased, no saloon or place of entertainment shall thereafter be set up or established for the sale of intoxicating drinks, and no sporting festival shall be held within one-fourth of a mile from the entrance grounds of such corporation, which again is referring to the cemetery. So there must have been an issue with uh people getting rowdy and intoxicated near cemeteries. That is not a section of law that's currently on the books, but uh, you couldn't have a saloon within a quarter mile of a cemetery. Uh, 1873, and this is an interesting one that, again, we talked a little bit about earlier, and and you and I chatted before we started recording about. Uh, 1837, it said women can be imprisoned for liquor law violations the same as men, which is is fascinating. I I there's there was a lot more legislation on specifically what individuals could do, so uh intoxication and so on and so forth, but the the laws were expanded so that that applied equally to men and women. Um, and and I know Sara, you had some interesting insight on that when we were talking earlier.

Sara Weber: 30:56

I was just complaining because this is the first time that we were recognized for something similar to men for purposes of imprisonment, but we still didn't have the right to vote. We still couldn't own property, you know, we still had so many restrictions against us as women, but yet we could still go to prison same as men now. So, I mean, I guess win for suffrage on that part of it, but you know, um definitely interesting and a little bittersweet too. But you know, we must have been really misbehaving back then for that to come up. Again, what was happening in that time to where that particular law had to come into place to say, okay, women, you know, you've uh the only thing I can think of is you know the types of activities that were taking place in some of these areas, you know, again, may have had a hand in this.

David Marvin: 31:46

So yeah, it's uh but but it was specific to liquor violations. So I've I've I'm interested as to what that is, because even at that point in time, women couldn't own liquor licenses.

Sara Weber: 31:56

So we couldn't own them, but you know, probably you know, you still have similar issues to men where, you know, depending on what you're working and what your role is in these establishments, maybe that's could be why, you know.

David Marvin: 32:08

And and I suspect that even at that point in time, there were plenty of women that were running these businesses, and uh maybe their husband's name was on it, or a brother, or something like that, and they were doing that, uh, or their father, uh, and then they were in their own rights, probably running these licenses, license establishments, and probably some of that comes from that also. 1876. So 200 years ago, uh coming up real soon here, uh, there was a constitutional amendment for prohibition again, statewide prohibition, and the voters defeated it. So I find it interesting that they're getting closer and they're getting closer. And I think if I remember some of the other votes, uh this one came a little bit closer. It was it was within a couple percentage points of of winning, but uh, but it didn't. About a year or about a decade later, uh, there was a number of additional um uh things that were added. So we talked about no sales to miners earlier on, except for unless they were traveling. That law went away and it was just flat across the board, straight across the board, no sales to miners. Um and the licensees were found liable for it. So if there was something that happened to the miner afterward, uh not just selling to the miner, but if there was some sort of unfortunate situation that happened afterwards, uh they could be uh held liable for that. And uh miners and students, and they didn't define students, so I don't know what that would have been. I'm assuming all students, but I don't know if it included like university, yeah, uh, could not be in bar rooms. Uh so that's an interesting thing. We still have some similar language under the Youth Employment Act uh today that people under a certain age uh can't be at uh establishments that sell more than 50% of their their revenue is uh through the sale of alcohol after a certain uh period of time. And this is the one that really baffles me the most. Uh it wasn't until 1887 that there were standard operating hours in law. So today, the standard operating hours are 7 a.m. all the way through 2 a.m. the next day. And that's that, and then on Sundays, you have to have a Sunday sales permit if you're gonna sell alcohol. So that's that's been standard that way for decades. Back then, it was hours they needed to be closed. So the 7 a.m. has been in law for a long time. So that they had to be closed from nine o'clock at night all the way to 7 a.m. the next morning. Now it there was already the prohibition on Sunday sales, so it would to me that is fascinating. That it took until 1887 to get standardized hours. That that to me is is a baffling, uh, a baffling thing that I would have thought that would have been much earlier, that they would have been like, this is the time frame uh in which you can sell. A couple years later, uh we took that that local option thing that we talked about with communities. Counties were then able now to uh have a county option. They could say the whole county is gonna be dry, as opposed to just individual cities saying that. And then we get to the 1900s. 1909, again, fascinating that it took that long to get to this, but it was the first real quota where there was a limit based off of population. And it was one bar room, and so there's only focus really on your on-premises licenses. One bar room license at that point in time is what it was called for each 500 people in population, and it was city, village, or township. And so it was it that to me is interesting that it took that long. So we're only a hundred plus few years into having a quota system there. I know that that the quotas today can be kind of frustrating for people when there's not a license available. Uh, so it's it that has been something that's been there since 1909. Uh, and that's a fascinating thing. And I think the funny thing about this was it also went on to prohibit free food, which makes sense, except for crackers or pretzels. And I mean, why crackers or pretzels? Other than I'm thinking they're salty, and so therefore, the more you eat, the more you're gonna want to drink. But I think some of that was just so that you wouldn't offer free food so that people would come in and and drink essentially to excess. They weren't coming there. Uh, today, obviously, we have bars and restaurants that serve food, and there isn't that prohibition.

Sara Weber: 36:31

And this would be different than your the tavern that they talked about before. So, this is more of your saloon type establishments that you were alluding to before, as opposed to these overnight establishments that you know would have offered room service and food and you know, that type of thing.

David Marvin: 36:48

So, what I haven't done, and I really need to do, is find out when that section of law was was repealed, because I can't imagine that part probably stayed on the on the books very long. Though it wasn't but a decade later that prohibition came into place. So it may have been repealed at that point in time when when all the old laws were were essentially null and void and the new liquor control code came into place in in 1933. So I'll have to do some research on that. But I just I again crackers and pretzels are are kind of a funny thing. Um, and then 1913. So there had to have been some dry counties at that point in time, uh, because there was a prohibition that if you were in a wet county, you couldn't ship alcohol into the dry counties. So you couldn't be like, oh, hey, you want your alcohol, we'll we'll deliver it to you from county A into county B. Um, and then this is it was interesting. It was uh the first time that alcohol on trains was prohibited, except for in a dining car. And so you had to actually go somewhere, so you couldn't just sit there and drink anywhere. Um, and that's similar to how we have it today. This is the one that is fascinating to me. I really need to figure out the genesis of this, the the problem that was trying to be solved. 1915, there was a prohibition on advertising alcoholic beverages with the likeness or quotes of a deceased ex-president. Didn't say about an alive president, but if if there was a former president who was dead, you couldn't put an image on a bottle. You couldn't do advertising for alcohol with that. So I don't know if there was a something where somebody was going around selling somebody's favorite beer. Uh, I'm sure there is a backstory on it. I have looked for more information. It is, I have a copy of the law. I just don't know why the law was enacted. And it just to me seems like a fascinating, um, fascinating backstory that probably could be a podcast of its own once we figured out what it was. And then we get to 1916 and everything changes. There's a constitutional amendment that finally the voters of Michigan pass overwhelmingly. Uh it was about a two-to-one vote, and it prohibited the manufacturing and sale of alcoholic beverages in Michigan forever. And I love that it said forever. It went into effect in May of 1918 and forever ended in November of 1932 when the voters went back and overwhelmingly re repealed that.

Sara Weber: 39:26

And I will say in 1932, women voted in that one. So in 1916, when that was voted on to be prohibited, that was all men. That was men's decision. Well, I'm just kidding.

David Marvin: 39:39

But the women's women were very uh integral in the temperance movement.

Sara Weber: 39:43

Seriously, remember that we have some pictures in our office. Um, for anybody who's ever visited, well, um, we have pictures of women looking very stern, advising that liquor will never touch their lips. I'm just messing with David again because.

David Marvin: 40:00

We talked about a little bit. And it's a but it is a fascinating that that how much had changed that period of time. I mean, women had the right to vote. Uh, we got our first United States income tax. Uh, a number of things happened in that period of time, a lot of uh societal change, and one of them was alcohol was prohibited, and then uh not much later, 15 years later, you had it repealed. The interesting thing is, and we kind of talked about this uh a little bit in a previous podcast, but Michigan was number one when it came to the repeal of the 18th Amendment. But we repealed our state prohibition, and that repeal actually created the framework for the liquor control commission. It said there shall be a liquor control commission, and the legislature can promulgate the rules for that or pass the laws for that. We were number one. Within less than 90 days, Congress approved the 18th amendment to go to each state. And unlike most constitutional amendments where the states just the voters of the state approve it, it had to go through a constitutional convention at each state level. So we had to get at that point in time about three million voters to say yes or no, to vote for a slate of electors, essentially to go to a constitutional convention. It was a hundred people, and they came to the capital in Lansing in April of 1933. We were the very first state to vote for the repeal of prohibition. It was on December 5th of 1933, where the 36th state was Utah. Utah is also a control state like Michigan that has the state controls a portion of the distribution of alcohol. And so the the two control states were kind of the anchors on each end. Of the the 17 control states that are uh still active control states, all of them, except for one, voted to repeal prohibition. And so I find that really fascinating. North Carolina is the only one that has never approved, that was the only one who actually voted against the the 18th Amendment. Every other state either voted for it or didn't vote on it. North Carolina was the only one to vote against it. And so so they uh but it was already approved by that time, so it didn't really matter.

Sara Weber: 42:13

But they have an interesting setup, you know, as far as their control state model goes, too, because I think we've alluded to this before. Not every control state model is the same. And Michigan operates very differently from other states, but so does North Carolina. And I just want to shout out to them because we really enjoyed listening to their historical discussion on how they came about as well. I think also from a control state model, it's very interesting looking back at our history to see how from the very first steps we came into being and the things that are still appropriate today that somebody conceptualized that far in the past to get us to where we are today.

David Marvin: 42:53

We can see from early on some of the ideas that we have today, like no sales to minors and no sales to intoxicated people, licensed premises being a specific place, no Sunday sales unless approved otherwise, and and and just the hours of service, things like that that we take for granted so much, have this long history in Michigan. And they were there for a reason.

Sara Weber: 43:12

And I also like the fact that you know we see other hints at some of the other prevention methods. We always look at health, safety, and welfare for the licensing aspect, but we also have people that partner with us that they are really concerned about how to control alcohol within families and underage sales, saturation. So it looks like our forebearers were also cognizant of that and we're trying to put models into place that did those things as well. So thank you for bringing this all forward and discussing it. I know it was a lot to a lot to unpack today, and you did a lot of talking. Um, I sat back and listened and just nodded my head, but it's to me, it's fascinating. And I hope everybody else enjoyed it too, because we have a really cool history, and I'm glad that I'm part of this.

David Marvin: 44:00

I'm glad to be part of it too, and thank you for listening to all these facts and figures today. And we'll look forward to uh talking with you again on another MLCC on the road podcast coming up in the future. The MLCC on the road podcast is brought to you by the Michigan Liquor Control Commission. For more information on the Michigan Liquor Control Commission, please visit our website at www.misigan.govslash lcc. Thank you for listening.