Regulating Atlanta’s Liquor Industry, 1865–1907
As early as 1870 Atlanta’s liquor industry included three breweries, several wholesale distributors, and a lively saloon scene. Atlanta was growing, and boosters excited about the city’s potential sought ways to boost its liquor industry while simultaneously defending it against stereotypes of being a liquor-soaked city. The 1871 booklet Atlanta As It Is reported that there were more licensed saloons in the city than any other licensed enterprise except physicians and logically concluded that the liquor business was “very important” to Atlanta. After reviewing details about the sizes of the various wholesale liquor houses, it reminded readers that much of the liquor was shipped outside the city and that “a drunken man on our streets is rather a rare sight.” Early in 1885 the Atlanta Constitution listed 150 licensed businesses where a citizen could “wet his whistle” with some form of alcohol. While the article noted that “A man don’t have to walk much out of his way to get his toddy,” it also tried to reduce any sense of alarm by noting that there were other cities in the state with far more barrooms than Atlanta.1
Atlanta’s retail liquor industry may have been growing in absolute numbers, but relative to other factors it was actually in decline. Tables II.1 and II.2 show that according to the city directories, although the number of saloons steadily increased relative to the population and total city revenue, they did not keep pace with Atlanta’s growth. Atlanta’s citizen-to-saloon ratio was high relative to that of other cities of comparable size in the 1890s. An 1894 survey of 345 cities with more than 10,000 people showed an average of one saloon for every 250 persons, while in Atlanta there was one saloon for every 618 in 1890 and one for every 707 in 1900. Several forces were limiting Atlanta’s liquor industry.2
While private temperance and prohibition groups did their best to curb the demand for alcoholic beverages, the various levels of government actively regulated their supply and distribution. Notwithstanding some colorful episodes of Atlanta police officers, and a fire chief and a mayor being charged with public drunkenness, Atlanta’s government was on the front lines of liquor regulation. The city issued various annual licenses to regulate the liquor trade: licenses for breweries, distilleries, retailers of spirituous liquors, retailers of beer only, and beginning in 1889, liquor wholesalers. Brewery licenses fluctuated between $25 and $100, while licenses for distilleries, beer-only retailers, and liquor wholesalers rose steadily from $25 to $250.3
But the license attracting the most attention in Atlanta, and in America, was the one allowing its owner to sell spirituous liquors by the drink to be consumed on the premises—the saloon license. Municipalities took three approaches toward these licenses: “low license,” “high license,” and “no license” (that is, prohibition). Contemporary literature was filled with arguments for and against these various approaches.4
Low-license advocates insisted that fees be kept low (less than $500) to allow the greatest number of people possible to enter the trade. Its supporters considered this the fairest and most democratic approach. They argued that requiring high licenses was “class legislation” because the high license priced out of the business the small businessmen, many of whom were likely to be nonwhite.
No-license advocates opposed a low license on the grounds that it could result in a saloon on practically every corner. They argued that since the saloons produced crime, any licensing was nothing more than government endorsement of and profiting from evil.
High-license advocates felt their approach had the triple benefit of increasing city revenue, reducing saloons to a manageable number, and ensuring that only men of high status and “good reputation” would own them, ostensibly guaranteeing the saloons’ “respectable” character. They viewed themselves as conservative and reasonable because they freely admitted that the retail trade produced crime and other negative side effects, but they also argued that, realistically speaking, in large cities “prohibition does not prohibit,” so high-license was the best alternative.
In 1867 Atlanta had an extremely high $500 license fee. High-license supporters advocated retaining a high fee, arguing that a low license would create an unmanageable proliferation of saloons. However, from 1868 to 1884 the city council reduced the fee to $300. Two changes occurred in 1885. In May the city council returned to the $500—“high license”—fee, which reduced the number of saloons by about a third, until November’s local option election closed them all. After saloons were returned to Atlanta in 1887, the city moved to a $1,000 license fee. Atlanta was one of a very small group of cities with more than 50,000 people to have a fee $1,000 or higher in the 1880s, and the fee remained unchanged until state prohibition began in January 1908. During these years Atlanta had the highest license fee of any Southern city its size or larger.5
The liquor regulations of the Atlanta City Council were constantly changing. In 1879 the council raised the fee to $400 but rescinded the increase after one year. In 1882 the police commission chairman unsuccessfully argued for a $1,000 fee in order to close the many “low dives,” a thinly veiled attack on saloons patronized primarily by blacks. No one on the police commission supported him. Prior to 1876 the council read and approved or disapproved a license application in a single council meeting, but beginning in 1876 it referred requests to the council’s police committee, which reported back favorably or unfavorably one or two weeks later, presumably after some discussion and investigation. The council granted retail liquor licenses, and all other business licenses, for 12 months, but because the fee was so high for liquor, saloon keepers were permitted to pay it quarterly. Most retailers received a license in July for 12 months, although some were approved at other times at well. Between 1890 and 1892 the council tried another approach. All licenses expired on December 31 and June 30, no matter when they were approved. The vast majority of applicants submitted their applications from four to six weeks before the expiration, and they were considered as a group by the police committee.
This attempt to tighten up the process failed to impress the local press, which claimed licenses were still being issued “indiscriminately.” In 1893 the council returned to annual licenses, although they continued to be reviewed as a group every June. Until 1898 the police committee had permitted applicants to begin conducting business while their license was still under consideration, but in 1899 they ended that practice. As one would expect, the council entertained complaints from neighbors about saloons and sometimes rejected licenses based on such petitions. A variety of council ordinances established saloon closing times and regulated sales and operations in various ways.6
In spite of all these changes, or perhaps because of them, the city fathers touted the effectiveness of their liquor regulation. The Annual Report of the Police Committee for 1881 claimed that every retail liquor license application received a “rigid and searching investigation.” In 1894 they allegedly had the “best regulated liquor traffic of any city in the country,” but in 1898 they more modestly claimed to possess a liquor traffic “better regulated than in any other city of the state.” There is no way to know exactly how well the police enforced the laws, but even ardent prohibitionist evangelist Sam P. Jones thought in the 1890s that Atlanta’s saloon owners were particularly careful about obeying regulations. If Atlanta’s saloons were actually that well regulated, the credit must go to a police department assiduous about enforcement, because during these years the chief of police repeatedly requested funds to hire more officers and was repeatedly turned down.7
But the city government was not the only level of government regulating Atlanta’s liquor industry. The state legislature’s actions were ultimately more important. For example, in response to the longtime candidate practice of treating voters, in March 1869 it banned the sale of liquor within one mile of any town on Election Day. In 1873 lawmakers banned gaming in saloons, and beginning in 1875 it became a violation of state law to sell spirituous liquors to minors. But the most significant liquor-related legislation to come out of the state legislature was the General Local Option law of 1885, which paved the way for Atlanta’s 1885 and 1887 local option elections. In 1906 Fulton was one of only 26 wet Georgia counties surrounded by a sea of 120 dry counties. Each year from 1893 to 1901 lawmakers introduced some form of state prohibition legislation, only to see it defeated. Finally, in August 1907, in the wake of Atlanta’s horrible 1906 race riot, the legislature passed the Hardeman-Covington state prohibition bill, making the whole state dry as of January 1, 1908. Blacks had been effectively disenfranchised long before 1907. Atlanta and all of Georgia remained dry until 1938, five years after the end of national prohibition. Ultimately, prohibition in Atlanta was a result of state, not local, government.8