“A HUGE JOKE”

Evening Star, Issue 19712, 12 November 1927, Page 11

“A HUGE JOKE”

PROHIBITION IN AMERICA LIQUOR LAWS OPENLY FLOUTED POLICE TURN A BLIND EYE. Prohibition in the United States is a fiasco and a failure, and is regarded as nothing more nor less than a huge joke. This comment is the candid opinion of Mr Percy Braithwaite, who returned to Dunedin on Thursday evening after an extended tour of America, England. and the Continent. Reports concerning the enforcement of Prohibition in the United States have been many and varied. Mr Braitlnvaite, who stated at the outset that his sympathies were with National Prohibition, gave the matter a close study, and related his impressions gained from actual observation to a ‘Star’ man this morning. “Liquor of any description can be had for the mere asking,” said, Mr Braithwaite. He went on to say that the first person he saw drunk in the States was a woman who_ was coming out of a large restaurant in San Francisco. ’He approached the proprietor, and questioned him about the matter. The' proprietor said very naively; “I wonder where these people get the drink from?” A utUe while latci ho offered to supply Mr Braithwaite with a cocktail or a whisky and soda if he wished to have a drink. Drink could he had in any quantity in the best hotels and cabarets. The agents of bootleggers could be numbered in thousands. In the principal hotels in which Mr Braithwaite stayed in the United States the first question asked was: “Would you care for_ a cocktail? ” All around there was striking evidence of people being served with liquor. The law was more or less openly flouted. In one of the best hotels in New York Mr Braithwaite saw eight people under the influence of liquor in one room. There was also a groat deal of drinking among the younger people, and this was one of the outstanding disgraces of the whole thing. Then there wore the “Speak Easy” resorts. In these places bars stocking every brand of liquor were installed. These bars were exactly the same as the ones in New Zealand, oven to the brass rail along the front. ; “The enforcement of Prohibition, is a huge joke,” said Mr Braithwaite. “The police do not take any particular notice or interest in it, ns they are" well paid to keep their eyes shut.”