It’s not the tax rate or the unemployment rate or the crimes-per-capita that determine the vibrancy of American cities. Not any more.
It’s the liquor.
A cool city is considered a Garden of Eden if the college kids and the young professionals and the gay crowd and the conventioneers can converge on a relatively small stretch of downtown and drink until closing time.
A bedraggled, unhappy, unfortunate factory town might also has active bars and clubs, but they aren’t cool and too many of the girls have tattoos and the guys come out late at night and pee on the sidewalk.
The ghetto bars and clubs, in order to fit the stereotype, have to assemble disgruntled youth and aimless guys outside the building, where they can get into fights and look surly in time for the television cameras to film and produce yet another story about the Decline and Fall of the West.
It’s all about the liquor. There’s nothing else going on in our cities and towns that we accept as a reliable indicator of how the municipality is doing.
The liquor generates sales tax revenue – and concentrates activity in parts of downtown that would rarely merit a visit for any other reason. But, liquor still represents Evil Demon Rum; it is naughty, it is suggestive of things out of control, even as the travel and tourism professionals pray for hordes of drinkers to descend on their communities.
Mississippi State Rep. Noah “Soggy” Sweat Jr., in the 1950s, made himself famous with his “Whiskey Speech,” during a debate on Prohibition, which best summed up our mixed feelings about alcohol:
“If when you say whiskey, you mean the Devil’s brew, the poison scourge, the bloody monster that defiles innocence, dethrones reason, destroys the home, creates misery and poverty…then certainly I am against it. But if when you say whiskey, you mean the oil of conversation, the philosophic wine, the ale that is consumed when good fellows get together, that puts a song in their hearts and laughter on their lips, and the warm glow of contentment in their eyes; if you mean Christmas cheer; if you mean the stimulating drink that puts a spring in the old gentleman’s step on a frosty, crispy morning; if you mean the drink that enables a man to magnify his joy and his happiness…then certainly I am for it.”
Bottoms Up
It’s the liquor. Even “dry” towns fret about it – and the liquored-up municipalities spend endless amounts of time deciding how to encourage it, discourage it and regulate it.
Outdoor restaurant dining seems to require liquor. At European cafes, there are inevitably crowds of happy young professionals and tourists outside, accompanied by glasses of beer or bottles of wine.
In truth, the outdoor feeding is a bit inconvenient and costly for the restaurants – unless everybody agrees to have a drink or two.
And so it is in Worcester, where after much negotiation, the city fathers have agreed to let restaurants extend the hours for outside eating – and extend “the season” for an additional two weeks.
The Worcester restaurants will be allowed to service the thirsty until 11:30 p.m. – but only if the kitchen stays open that late. In theory, at least, the patrons must be munching on chicken wings at the same time they are drinking the Evil Demon Rum. If the restaurant kitchens close before 11:30, no more booze may be served outdoors, because, after all, you know, we don’t want people just sitting around, drinking.
This complex love-hate relationship with liquor goes on all over. In Florida, Key West (not known to be haunted by guilt about drinking too much) last year finally repealed its peculiar prohibition against bars and restaurants selling liquor between 4 a.m. and noon on Sundays.
In Columbus, Ohio, Sunday bar service may now start at 11 a.m., instead of 1 p.m. In Ft. Walton Beach, Fla., it is now legal to sell the hooch as early as 7 a.m. on Sundays, instead of holding off until 1 p.m.
Each jurisdiction has its weird explanations for why the liquor laws are the way they are.
It’s enough to make you go out and have a drink.
