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posted by Fnord666 on Monday June 10 2019, @06:47AM   Printer-friendly
from the life-finds-a-way dept.

Submitted via IRC for Bytram

To Evade Pre-Prohibition Drinking Laws, New Yorkers Created the World's Worst Sandwich

To Evade Pre-Prohibition Drinking Laws, New Yorkers Created the World's Worst Sandwich

Near the end of the 19th century, New Yorkers out for a drink partook in one of the more unusual rituals in the annals of hospitality. When they ordered an ale or whisky, the waiter or bartender would bring it out with a sandwich. Generally speaking, the sandwich was not edible. It was “an old desiccated ruin of dust-laden bread and mummified ham or cheese,” wrote the playwright Eugene O’Neill. Other times it was made of rubber. Bar staff would commonly take the sandwich back seconds after it had arrived, pair it with the next beverage order, and whisk it over to another patron’s table. Some sandwiches were kept in circulation for a week or more.

Bar owners insisted on this bizarre charade to avoiding breaking the law—specifically, the excise law of 1896, which restricted how and when drinks could be served in New York State. The so-called Raines Law was a combination of good intentions, unstated prejudices, and unforeseen consequences, among them the comically unsavory Raines sandwich.

[...] The 1896 Raines Law was designed to put dreary watering holes like these out of business. It raised the cost of an annual liquor license to $800, three times what it had cost before and a tenfold increase for beer-only taverns. It stipulated that saloons could not open within 200 feet of a school or church, and raised the drinking age from 16 to 18. In addition, it banned one of the late 19th-century saloon’s most potent enticements: the free lunch. At McSorley’s, for example, cheese, soda bread, and raw onions were on the house. (The 160-year-old bar still sells a tongue-in-cheek version of this today.) Most controversial of all was the law’s renewed assault on Sunday drinking. Its author, Finger Lakes region senator John W. Raines, eliminated the “golden hour” grace period that followed the stroke of midnight on Saturday. His law also forced saloon owners to keep their curtains open on Sunday, making it considerably harder for patrolmen to turn a blind eye.

[...] Intentionally or not, the Raines Law left wiggle room for the rich. But a loophole was a loophole, and Sunday was many a proprietor’s most profitable day of business. By the following weekend, a vanguard of downtown saloon-owners were gleefully testing the law’s limits. A suspicious number of private “clubs” were founded that April, and saloons started handing out membership cards to their regulars. Meanwhile, proprietors converted basements and attic spaces into “rooms,” cut hasty deals with neighboring lodging-houses, and threw tablecloths over pool tables. They also started dishing up the easiest, cheapest, most reusable meal they could get away with: the Raines sandwich.

Law enforcement declared itself satisfied. “I would not say that a cracker is a complete meal in itself, but a sandwich is,” an assistant D.A. in Brooklyn told an assembly of police captains as the first Raines hotels sprouted up. Remarkably, the courts upheld these definitions of “meal” and “guest.” Reformers were understandably flabbergasted. The law itself was sound, Raines complained. It was the police and the courts that had made it laughable. He and his progressive allies had seriously underestimated just how far New Yorkers would go for a drink.

The court decisions were a turning point. With summer approaching, “Raines hotels” sprang up everywhere. By the next year’s election season, there were more than 1,500 of them in New York. Brooklyn, still a separate municipality at this point, went from 13 registered hotels to 800 in six months, and its tally of social clubs grew tenfold.

For the libertines of New York City, Zacks writes, the second half of 1896 was “too good to be true, a drunken daydream.” The hotel carve-out allowed drinks to flow at all hours. There was no obligatory last call, and the city’s liveliest drinking spots now offered cheap beds mere steps away. For Raines and the law’s other architects, this was the most alarming unintended consequence: their efforts to make New Yorkers virtuous had caused a spike in casual sex and prostitution.


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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 10 2019, @07:19AM (12 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 10 2019, @07:19AM (#853584)

    This is exactly how I imagine a Rule of Law culture governed by criminals works in detail.

    • (Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 10 2019, @07:36AM (7 children)

      by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 10 2019, @07:36AM (#853586)

      This is what happens when laws try to ban something common and 'victimless'. It is either worked around such as in this example, or goes underground and becomes part of the black market. When it goes to the black market, the size of black market increases and other less savoury activities become more available at the same time. This results in an attack on regular citizens and a building disrespect for the for all - eg. the 'drug war' that cannot be 'won' and is of benefit only to padding the pockets of the police industrial complex.

      • (Score: 4, Informative) by AthanasiusKircher on Monday June 10 2019, @12:23PM (4 children)

        by AthanasiusKircher (5291) on Monday June 10 2019, @12:23PM (#853654) Journal

        This is what happens when laws try to ban something common and 'victimless'.

        Alcohol consumption is certainly not victimless a lot of the time. Long before drunken automobile drivers (though drunken horsemen caused trouble too), how many people died of chronic alcoholism and its health effects? How many drunken beatings were administered to children, wives, random people? How many families were destroyed by its effects? How much work lost, money squandered rather than budgeted for food for hungry children, etc.?

        Look, I'm by no means in favor of prohibition, and I don't think there's an easy legal answer to alcohol-created problems in society. I enjoy a drink (or a few) once or twice a week. But let's not pretend that there weren't some valid points to the temperance movement, back in the days when alcohol consumption tended to be more frequent and pervasive than today. It doesn't justify the overreaction of prohibition, but alcohol consumption definitely incurs victims sometimes.

        • (Score: 3, Insightful) by NotSanguine on Monday June 10 2019, @04:18PM (2 children)

          Alcohol consumption is certainly not victimless a lot of the time

          I have to disagree with that statement. Alcohol consumption, while it may have deleterious, medium to long term, effects on an individual, isn't inherently good or bad. What people do when they are *under the influence of alcohol* does present risk of harm. You may think I'm splitting hairs, but there are important differences between imbibing ethanol-based beverages and the irresponsible, violent and just plain stupid acts that many engage in after imbibing such beverages.

          Given that (this is anecdotal) something like half of drunk people decide to be violent and/or destructive and make really poor choices while under the influence of alcohol, blaming the alcohol seems like a reasonable idea. However, given the prevalence of alcohol consumption (cf. Ken Burns' fine documentary [pbs.org], for example), blaming the substance is a recipe for failure and disaster.

          The Temperance Movement [wikipedia.org] was a decidedly mixed bag, IMHO. While many (especially women) decried the violence and terror thrust upon the families of drunken men (and rightly so), there were many (especially hypocritical "religious" types) who deemed it 'ungodly' and 'sinful', in keeping with the decidedly repressive and conformist ideologies of Puritans, Methodists and others.

          Rather than blaming alcohol itself, we should (and to a greater extent these days, we do) make an effort to mitigate the negative impacts of being under the influence of alcohol. Being drunk is no reason to do violence to other people or property. We have laws to address that sort of behavior regardless of alcohol impairment.

          One of the really important things we *don't* do, is to provide broad-based access to public/semi-public transportation for those who are impaired by alcohol (or any other substance). In most places, there is little to no access to such transportation, which leads to injury, death and property damage when an impaired person has no choice but to drive while impaired.

          This is profoundly stupid. Here's an impromptu and unscientific poll question you might want to ask of people around you: "How many times, after a night out drinking, have you woken up without a recollection of how you got home, even though you drove your car to wherever it was that served you alcohol, and that same car was sitting in your driveway?"

          Many Americans who grew up in suburbs/exurbs/rural areas will have had that experience at least once, and likely more than once. A smaller number will tell you that there were dents/damage/blood or hair in their car's grille or other ominous signs, which they cannot remember or explain, after such a night.

          Banning alcohol (as you rightly observe) isn't the right solution. However, there are many things we *could* be doing that we aren't. More's the pity.

          I'd point out that I rarely (several times a year, perhaps) drink alcohol. What's more, if I never drank alcohol again, it wouldn't be a big deal to me at all. As such, I have no skin in that game. I just think it's more important to address the negative impact of impairment (and the reckless actions of impaired persons) than to blame the substance(s) which causes such impairment.

          --
          No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
          • (Score: 4, Interesting) by HiThere on Monday June 10 2019, @04:48PM (1 child)

            by HiThere (866) Subscriber Badge on Monday June 10 2019, @04:48PM (#853750) Journal

            Well, but there's more to it than that. At the time a husband usually had legal control over his wife's money and property. Someone who was a drunken gambler could easily impoverish a woman who could otherwise support herself, or even herself and her family.

            So the roots of the temperance movement are multiple. It was the wrong answer, but it was the only one available. Without the support of the wowsers, the women wouldn't have enough votes, so they couldn't just campaign to control their own money and property. Often they didn't even have the vote...which is why the women's movement started in the western states. (Yeah, that needs a more expanded explanation, but enough's enough.)

            --
            Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
            • (Score: 4, Interesting) by NotSanguine on Monday June 10 2019, @05:01PM

              Well, but there's more to it than that. At the time a husband usually had legal control over his wife's money and property. Someone who was a drunken gambler could easily impoverish a woman who could otherwise support herself, or even herself and her family.

              Absolutely. Like I said, many of the women involved in the temperance movement had a lot of good reasons (domestic violence just being the most egregious) to want the men around them to be sober.

              Aside from New York and Maine, most states didn't give women the right to control even *their own* (as in those controlled by a women when she married) assets until well into the 20th century. And alcohol had nothing to do with that. Just straight-up, sober as a judge, discrimination

              I'd also point out that credit card companies generally required women to have a male co-signer to obtain a credit card until the 1970s. It's been a long and difficult road for women in the US (and elsewhere). Fortunately, we've made some progress, with safe, affordable birth control and 'no-fault' divorce being two important areas. More recently, police treating domestic violence as a crime rather than just "marital issues" to be ignored is important too.

              --
              No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
        • (Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday June 11 2019, @02:43AM

          by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday June 11 2019, @02:43AM (#854037) Journal

          how many people died of chronic alcoholism and its health effects?

          Doesn't make them victims.

          How many drunken beatings were administered to children, wives, random people?

          People beat children, wives, random people, not alcohol.

          and I don't think there's an easy legal answer to alcohol-created problems in society.

          Sure there is. Accept that it happens, set up appropriate punishments and rehabilitation, and move on.

          But let's not pretend that there weren't some valid points to the temperance movement, back in the days when alcohol consumption tended to be more frequent and pervasive than today.

          It helped punish the Germans, Irish, and Poles for coming to America.

      • (Score: 1) by VacuumTube on Monday June 10 2019, @09:47PM (1 child)

        by VacuumTube (7693) on Monday June 10 2019, @09:47PM (#853905) Journal

        "the 'drug war' that cannot be 'won' and is of benefit only to padding the pockets of the police industrial complex."

        Correct, but don't forget the "press industrial complex", who also benefit. It's a symbiotic relationship.

        • (Score: 2) by dry on Tuesday June 11 2019, @02:58AM

          by dry (223) on Tuesday June 11 2019, @02:58AM (#854042) Journal

          I didn't think paper was that important anymore. Sure Hearst was behind illegalizing hemp, renamed as marijuana to protect his pulp paper investments but that's 90 odd years in the past.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 10 2019, @08:35AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 10 2019, @08:35AM (#853592)

      A decadent culture would create a new sandwich for each customer, not reuse the same one over and over.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 10 2019, @08:41AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 10 2019, @08:41AM (#853593)

      Still preferred over Rule of Man by criminals.

    • (Score: 3, Insightful) by Azuma Hazuki on Monday June 10 2019, @11:50AM (1 child)

      by Azuma Hazuki (5086) on Monday June 10 2019, @11:50AM (#853637) Journal

      Yyyyyyup. What you are describing is a takeover of Lawful Evil, which I consider the single worst alignment on the entire chart. Not for nothing does the set of planes specify what's essentially the Abrahamic religions' Hell as the plane of pure Lawful Evil.

      --
      I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 10 2019, @05:45PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 10 2019, @05:45PM (#853769)

        Sure, but can we take a moment to amuse ourselves on the use of a human construct as a metaphor for human activity? Tis the age of meta! All those poor 80's kids headbanging to the wrong trend :(

  • (Score: 3, Interesting) by FatPhil on Monday June 10 2019, @07:38AM (8 children)

    by FatPhil (863) <pc-soylentNO@SPAMasdf.fi> on Monday June 10 2019, @07:38AM (#853587) Homepage
    The reason most Finnish bars call themselves "Ravintola" ("restaurant") is because in order to have an alcohol licence, they needed to serve food. As in the NY case, the food of choice was a sandwich - the "pub sandwich". It would get delivered to customers in turn, and then taken away again. I have friend who claims to have seen this with his own two eyes.
    --
    Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
    • (Score: 4, Interesting) by MostCynical on Monday June 10 2019, @10:38AM

      by MostCynical (2589) on Monday June 10 2019, @10:38AM (#853606) Journal

      There was one, very sad steak wandering around a nightclub in a smaller Australian town less than 20 years ago, for the same reason: restaurants didn't have the difficult iicensing that applied to bars and nightclubs.

      As a bonus, if a customer tried to eat the steak, they were obviously drunk, so were refused any more alcohol.
      (it came out cold, with nothing else on the plate. The place was dark enough that I couldn't even tell if it was real or rubber when the waitress walked past. The guy who tried (and failed) to eat it was in no condition to tell me..)

      --
      "I guess once you start doubting, there's no end to it." -Batou, Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex
    • (Score: 5, Interesting) by AthanasiusKircher on Monday June 10 2019, @12:38PM (5 children)

      by AthanasiusKircher (5291) on Monday June 10 2019, @12:38PM (#853657) Journal

      Not quite the same thing, but many states still have bizarre alcohol laws in the U.S., many tied to food.

      For example, in Pennsylvania [wikipedia.org], you can only sell beer and wine if you sell food. (Mostly: there are exceptions for beer distributors and wineries.) That has led to the bizarre situation where grocery stores open an in-store "cafe" that carries a few sandwiches or something, just so they can also sell beer there. You have to buy the beer at the "cafe," not at the check-out lines for the rest of the grocery store.

      The standard pub sandwich there has been replaced by a display case of sandwiches that you don't need to buy, but it's still an excuse allowing a store to sell alcohol. (And given that effectively these grocery stores are licensed as "restaurants," and the state liquor control board only gives out so many of those, apparently there are periodic auctions some places to get a license... that is, a license to pretend to be a restaurant just to sell beer along with your groceries.)

      • (Score: 2) by AthanasiusKircher on Monday June 10 2019, @12:46PM

        by AthanasiusKircher (5291) on Monday June 10 2019, @12:46PM (#853660) Journal

        (I should clarify that I don't know all the details of the laws in that state -- and much wine and all liquor is actually heavily regulated and sold only at special state liquor stores. But I find the grocery-store/cafe loophole to be amusing and much in the spirit of the fake sandwich.)

      • (Score: 3, Informative) by AthanasiusKircher on Monday June 10 2019, @01:00PM (3 children)

        by AthanasiusKircher (5291) on Monday June 10 2019, @01:00PM (#853662) Journal

        Apologies for another self-reply, but I meant that apparently grocery stores need to sell prepared food, with tables, etc. to qualify enough as a "restaurant" to be allowed to sell liquor. Obviously grocery stores mostly sell food too in other parts of the store, but they need a separate "cafe" section that acts like a restaurant, apparently so they can pretend that someone is likely eating a meal in order to purchase alcohol.

        • (Score: 2, Informative) by nitehawk214 on Monday June 10 2019, @06:18PM (2 children)

          by nitehawk214 (1304) on Monday June 10 2019, @06:18PM (#853778)

          Correct, except you don't have to purchase food, and you can take the alcohol to go. You still need separate registers which is a major pain in the ass. This is how groceries stores like Giant Eagle and Wegmans operate. The alcohol register section closes when the blue laws require them to. They both had restaurant sections anyhow, so it wasn't a major change for most of them.

          Additionally there are "no fuel and alcohol at the same register" laws for Sheetz, Wawa, and other full-service gas stations. I always pay for fuel at the pump and so only pay for food/alcohol at the register, but I assume if you wanted to pay cash for fuel, you would have to go through the checkout line twice.

          Before these changes took place there was the ubiquitous "6 pack shack", which had a nasty hot-dog roller thing and one table so they could qualify as a "restaurant".

          --
          "Don't you ever miss the days when you used to be nostalgic?" -Loiosh
          • (Score: 2) by AthanasiusKircher on Tuesday June 11 2019, @01:31AM (1 child)

            by AthanasiusKircher (5291) on Tuesday June 11 2019, @01:31AM (#854010) Journal

            Yeah, though I would note that my understanding is some grocery chains have deliberately installed cafes in a number of their stores (which weren't previously there) to take advantage of the new situation.

            I guess my point was that these laws in modern times are even more ridiculous than those mentioned in TFA, as they essentially work on the same premise, but don't even require the fake sandwich to be served.

            Essentially: "Good god-fearing people shouldn't be able to purchase alcohol except with meals... but we'll let you take one (or six) for the road... and oh, we won't track whether you're even buying a meal to eat here anymore, but you still have to theoretically be able to buy a meal, so please be sure to look those sandwiches in the case over closely before paying for your six-pack of beer." It's even more absurd than the historical crap in TFA.

            • (Score: 1) by nitehawk214 on Tuesday June 11 2019, @09:15PM

              by nitehawk214 (1304) on Tuesday June 11 2019, @09:15PM (#854380)

              You have understood the bizarreness of PA correctly.

              Even some el-cheapo grocery stores now have a little walled off area with some tables and real sandwiches so they can sell beer.

              The beer distributors managed to convince the laws to let them sell 12's and 6's so they can try to keep up. Until recently your choices were "buy an entire case at a beer distributor" or "buy 6 at a 'restaurant' and pay a huge markup".

              The grocery stores are at least competitive in pricing. There was a lot of lobbying on both sides of this. And not just from prohibition-proponents, the distributors wanted to go back to the old way where they had to sell cases but could lock out most competition. The grocery stores wanted less byzantine laws on who could sell what.

              And as far as wine and liquor goes... well that is an even longer story of state-run monopolies that goes back decades.

              --
              "Don't you ever miss the days when you used to be nostalgic?" -Loiosh
    • (Score: 2) by driverless on Tuesday June 11 2019, @04:10AM

      by driverless (4770) on Tuesday June 11 2019, @04:10AM (#854060)

      Well that's the bar's excuse, and quite valid too, but what's McDonald's excuse for the Big Mac?

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 10 2019, @09:46AM (3 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 10 2019, @09:46AM (#853595)

    See for example this description [loc.gov]

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 10 2019, @10:13AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 10 2019, @10:13AM (#853597)

      Attempting to ban long practiced customs via poorly thought out regulations is a progressive part-time. Not sure who thought they should add sic there.

    • (Score: 2) by martyb on Monday June 10 2019, @11:26AM

      by martyb (76) Subscriber Badge on Monday June 10 2019, @11:26AM (#853626) Journal

      Agreed. Story updated. Give it a few minutes for the change to percolate through the front-end caches.

      And a hearty thank-you for providing a link to justify the assertion; much appreciated!

      --
      Wit is intellect, dancing.
    • (Score: 2) by dry on Tuesday June 11 2019, @03:10AM

      by dry (223) on Tuesday June 11 2019, @03:10AM (#854045) Journal

      How progressiveness changes to conservationism after a few generations.

  • (Score: 3, Interesting) by Phoenix666 on Monday June 10 2019, @11:08AM (1 child)

    by Phoenix666 (552) on Monday June 10 2019, @11:08AM (#853619) Journal

    From the title I thought TFA was going to be the origin story for Katz's Deli's [wikipedia.org] pastrami sandwich. I like the sandwich myself but thought the premise might be an interesting contrarian view.

    There used to be a bar called the Lansky Lounge in the Lower East Side that was a former speakeasy. You entered it through a grate in the sidewalk and walked through a back alley and climbed up a fire escape. It had a 20's Art Deco theme and had good cocktails. On one side of the bar was a pair of swinging doors you could pop through and right into a row of booths in a deli; the idea was if the speakeasy was raided the drinkers could slip through the swinging doors and sit down in the booths of the deli like they were there for a meal. It was a legal dodge they used during Prohibition.

    If I remember correctly in Amsterdam the "coffee" shops are called that for a similar reason, because they can't just be marijuana shops.

    --
    Washington DC delenda est.
  • (Score: 2) by AthanasiusKircher on Monday June 10 2019, @12:54PM (1 child)

    by AthanasiusKircher (5291) on Monday June 10 2019, @12:54PM (#853661) Journal

    Uh, if the author of TFA thinks this is the world's worst sandwich, I think they need to get around more. I knew a guy once who ate chunky peanut butter and liverwurst sandwiches regularly (with pickles, too, I think).

    I think, given the choice, I'd risk the week-old ham sandwich from the pub than one of those nasty buggers.

    • (Score: 1, Troll) by realDonaldTrump on Monday June 10 2019, @03:29PM

      by realDonaldTrump (6614) on Monday June 10 2019, @03:29PM (#853722) Homepage Journal

      I'd rather risk the Ham Sandwich than the Alcohol. Because I saw what happened to my brother. He was a great guy, a fantastic guy, a handsome person. But he got stuck on alcohol. And it had a profound impact and ultimately Freddy became an alcoholic and died of alcoholism. He would tell me, "don't drink -- ever." And I never have. He understood the problem that he had and that it was a very hard problem. For him and for many folks.

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 10 2019, @03:10PM (2 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 10 2019, @03:10PM (#853706)

    Prohibition 2.0 in the USA is in the works.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 10 2019, @03:27PM (1 child)

      by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 10 2019, @03:27PM (#853721)

      I'll bite. What exactly is going to be "banned" by the government during "Prohibition 2.0"? Alcohol? I highly doubt that. I'm really interested in what you think will be prohibited this time.

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 10 2019, @08:31PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 10 2019, @08:31PM (#853850)

        Caffiene.

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 10 2019, @04:03PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 10 2019, @04:03PM (#853736)

    The act of drinking itself wasn't prohibited then. "Prohibition" is wrongly applied although this was certainly a crusade of the temperance movement.
    This same act would be a somewhat convenient way of establishing a money laundering operation back then.
    Today, one might take it down by having the department of health come in and declare that they were serving unsafe food. But public health wasn't a governmental operation back then.

  • (Score: 1) by jmc23 on Thursday June 13 2019, @01:55AM

    by jmc23 (4142) on Thursday June 13 2019, @01:55AM (#854963)

    I did a short stint at a restaurant selling rotting food just so they could get around the more expensive alcohol only laws.

    I actually tried reporting them, but no part of the government wanted to hear about it.

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