Why New York Has Such Strange Rules About Alcohol

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The Prohibition era produced some long-lasting effects. It also brought us speakeasies and powder rooms.

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By Dodai Stewart

Good morning. It's Thursday. Ever wonder why you can't buy wine in a New York supermarket? Today we’ll look at the various regulations around selling alcohol in the city.

The supermarket chain Wegmans is lobbying New York State for permission to sell wine. It is just one moment in New York City's long, tumultuous, love/hate relationship with alcohol.

Despite the city's reputation for booze-soaked debauchery, its liquor laws can seem puritanical: Until last year, liquor stores were barred from opening on Christmas Day. The so-called boozy-brunch bill didn't pass until 2016; before that, restaurants were not supposed to serve alcohol before noon on Sunday.

It's all because of Prohibition. On Jan. 17, 1919, when Nebraska ratified the 18th Amendment, the nation became "dry." But in New York City, where people had been drinking since it was called New Amsterdam, the alcohol never went away, as long as you could pay.

"During Prohibition, all you needed to do is give five bucks to the cop on the corner," said Daniel Okrent, a former New York Times editor and author of the book "Last Call: The Rise and Fall of Prohibition," when reached by phone earlier this week. He said that bribes were more costly for "fancy places like the 21 Club and such."

Underground bars, known as speakeasies, thrived, and even apartments were used as secret bars. ("There is more drinking than ever," reads a quote in an article from September 1922, three years after the passage of the Volstead Act, which provided for the enforcement of the amendment.)

Prohibition created a kind of lawlessness, Okrent said. "There were no rules. There were no closing hours at the speakeasies. There were no age limits at the speakeasies. You could have a speakeasy next door to a church or on the same block as a school."

But when Prohibition ended, regulation of alcohol sales began. "It became much harder to get a drink in New York — and everywhere else — after Prohibition than during Prohibition," said Okrent, adding, "All the laws that we know for liquor control came after Prohibition."

Prohibition also brought about huge social changes, Okrent said. "The saloon was a male-only institution, and with Prohibition, the speakeasy became anybody can come," he said. "And once you have men and women in the same place? You’ve got to have food, you’ve got to have music. That's the creation of the nightclub."

The era also brought us the saloon powder room, Mr. Okrent said. "Saloons had a men's room, if they had anything. With women in the bar, they had to create a bathroom for women."

Proprietors worked with what they had — often the little space underneath the staircase — and added a toilet, a sink and a mirror. "It was it was an architectural phenomenon," Mr. Okrent said. "And it came out of Prohibition."

Wegmans cannot sell wine because of regulations set up almost 100 years ago. And that's the same reason, as my colleague Luis Ferré-Sadurní reported, that if a bar runs out of vodka or whiskey on some random busy night, it would technically be illegal for the bartender to just buy a bottle from the liquor store down the street.

New York State has a system that strictly divides the industry into producers, distributors and sellers, such as liquor stores or bars. A bar can buy liquor only from a wholesale distributor. These distributors have a lot of political power, and if you go far enough back, that power also stems from Prohibition, Mr. Okrent said. The original wholesalers were members of the organized crime community, who became suddenly legitimate when Prohibition ended.

"Dec. 5, 1933, they were mobsters," Mr. Okrent said. "On Dec. 6, they were wholesalers."

Yet another Prohibition-era regulation that persists: It is still illegal for liquor stores to open before noon on Sundays. So New York City residents planning 10 a.m. Sunday mimosas have to buy the Champagne on Saturday.

But one restriction in New York City eased recently. During the first year of the pandemic, to-go drinks were popular with struggling businesses as well as thirsty New Yorkers craving a walktail. Last year, Gov. Kathy Hochul made their legalization permanent. Cheers to that!

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METROPOLITAN diary

Dear Diary:

Recently, I was on the 6 train at Pelham Bay Park station. It's at the end of the line, so the doors were open while the train sat waiting to depart.

Seated across from me was a man eating a sandwich. A starling hopped onto the train and started walking toward him. He gently stamped his feet to discourage the bird from coming closer.

The starling then walked toward me. Stuck to the floor under the seat across from me was a small morsel of something. The bird started to peck at it.

While the man with the sandwich and I watched the bird, a booming voice came over the speaker: "Stand clear of the closing doors."

The bird whirled around rapidly and took flight, clearing the door with seconds to spare.

The man with the sandwich and I burst out laughing.

— Melanie Benvenue

Illustrated by Agnes Lee. Send submissions here and read more Metropolitan Diary here.

Great to see you here. Tune in for more tomorrow. — D.S.

P.S. Here's today's Mini Crossword and Spelling Bee. You can find all our puzzles here.

Melissa Guerrero and Ed Shanahan contributed to New York Today. You can reach the team at [email protected].

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Dodai Stewart is a writer on the Metro desk. She has lived in New York City since she was 7 years old.

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