SYNTHETIC GIN CHEAPER

Evening Star, Issue 21319, 25 January 1933, Page 7

SYNTHETIC GIN CHEAPER

BOOTLEGGERS SELL STOCKS U.S. ELECTION SEQUEL. I “ Bring back those good old days, ,,i long New York’s favourite lament, had lost its popularity to-day. The metropolis, considered to set tha pace for the rest of the United States,, was more wide open than it had even, been since Mr Volstead brought tears to the eyes of the thirsty. Close in the wake of the vote landslide that elected Mr Franklin D.r Roosevelt President on a platform con-; taining a liquor law repeal plank, tha; traders in illicit liquor sensed an end to the lucrative business. The result, was a quick cut in the prices for a' ( synthetic product they feared would ba j left on their hands if and when the goods they call “ the real M‘Coy ” arrived on the market. To-day it was cheaper and just about as easy to replenish the cellar’s stock or satisfy immediate personal needs as in those “ good old days.” Fifty per cent, reductions were reported in the price of gin, bringing the cost of a product smelling like bargain-store perfume down to 50, : cents (2s at par) a quart. Bottla goods bearing the label of a Scotch that, brings four dollars a quarter in Canada; could be procured on the East Side. West side, almost anywhere around the town, for half that amount. CHEAPER BEER. Boer that sold for 25 cents (Is) a’ glass in speakeasies almost as old as tha Volstead Act itself could be had at 10 cents and 15 cents. Meantime the “ big shots ” in tha illicit liquor trade had made hurried airplane or train trips to Canada ini search of “ booze” carrying boats. They departed almost as soon as judges here and there in the United States let it ba known that they considered the election result an indication the citizens did not wish the liquor laws too rigidly enforced. A number of New York’s “ bootleg barons ” were known to be in Nova Scotia seeking vessels to transport assorted refreshments from St. Pierre et Miquelon to rum rows along the Atlantic seaboard. They presumably figure that few juries would convict on liquor charges in the face of tho large vote pulled for the President-elect and hia repeal plank. And while New York anticipated tha early arrival of “ tho real M‘Coy ” from Miquelon, owners of the city’s thousands of speakeasies—dry workers say there are 22,000—flaunted the Volstead Act. It was no longer necessary to be “ in the know ’’ to enter the portals previously reserved for those bearing introduction cards or old customers.New Orleans police had been instructed by the superintendent, Mr George Reyer, to discontinue making arrests for violations of the Hood Act, states a Prohibition enforcement statute, for whose repeal the electorate voted overwhelmingly-; , ./