"Vote--Vote--We Want Beer!"

Normally I do not like to admit this in polite company, but I was once a Democrat. In fact a liberal Democrat.

As a precocious kid of 12 or 13, I used to tag along with a Democrat precinct captain as he went door to door.From him I learned some of the savvy techniques (and dirty tricks) that would later serve me well when I became a sentient being and began working to elect conservatives.

But I am not ashamed to admit it. I was once a Democrat. But then so was the very witty conservative writer, P.J. O'Rourke. He was not just a liberal Democrat, but was in fact, a drug addled hippie wwhen he wrote for Rolling Stone. Now he leans more toward dry martinis and H. Uppmann cigars. Now his writing makes sense.

And so, of course was the Great Communicator, himself, Ronald Reagan. Most people are unaware of this, but not only had he been a Democrat, but he was the only President of the United States who had been a labor union leader. He served as President of the Screen Actors Guild.

I can't often think of nice things to write about Democrats, but in recent reading, I came across the one indisputably good thing the Democrats ever did.

They legalized booze!

It was largely at the urging of pecksniff Midwestern and Bible Belt Republicans that liquor was outlawed in the US from 1919 to 1933.

It was the Democrat FDR who gave us back legal liquor.

Here is what the political scientist, William E. Leuchtenburg had to say about it:

"On Monday, March 13th, the President asked Congress to fulfill the Democratic pledge of an early end to prohibition. Roosevelt's victory had speeded a remarkable revolution in sentiment; even some veteran dry Congressman now voted for liquor. While the 21st Amendment was making its way through the states, Roosevelt requested quick action to amend the Volstead Act by legalizing beer of 3.2% alcoholic content by weight.

"Roosevelt's message touched off a rollicking debate. The drys, who had succeeded in killing a beer bill only a few weeks before, rehashed the arguments that had been so convincing for more than a decade, but to no avail.

"Impatient Congressmen chanted: 'Vote -- Vote -- We Want Beer!'

"Within a week, both Houses had passed the beer bill and added wine for good measure, although Congressmen protested that 3.2% wine was not 'interesting.' On March 22, Roosevely signed the bill.

"As the day of liberation approached, breweries worked feverishly to meet the anticipated demand. Working around the clock, a St. Joseph Missouri factory turned out ten tons of pretzels a day, but still ran two month behind. Emanuel Kovelski, president of the New York bartenders union proclaimed: 'We're all set. The bartenders will be all fine, clean upstanding yound men.'

"On April 7, 1933, beer was sold legally in America for the first time since the advent of prohibition and the wets made the most of it. In New York, six stout brewery horses drew a bright red stake wagon to the Empire State Building, where a case of beer was presented to Al Smith, 'the martyr of 1928.'

"In the beer town of St. Louis, steam whistles and sirens sounded at midnight, while Wisconsin Avenue in Milwaukee was blocked by mobs of celebrants singing 'Sweet Adeline.' The most important ritual took place at the Rennert Hotel bar in Baltimore: H.L. Mencken downed a glass of the new beer and assured anxious connoisseurs it was a worthy brew."

In 1936, The Democrats made the most of it as FDR easily sailed into his second term. They had a campaign song, which I once taped off of NPR. It went:

"Back Again,

Back Again

We Got Franklin D. Roosevelt,

Back Again

Since Roosevelt's been elected

Moonshine liquor's been corrected

We got legal wine, whiskey, beer and gin."

So don't ever say that I never gave the Democrats credit for ever doing anything good.

Devon Merchants Jump on Bootleg Cigarette Bandwagon

My spies on Devon Ave. reliably report that you can now buy single cigarettes under the counter at more than one little store there.

This doesn't at all surprise.

In an earlier post I reported witnessing an itinerant entrepreneur selling bootleg packs of Newports in Warren Park. Since the imposition of the Pelosi-Obama Tobacco Prohibition tax on April 1st, the cost of tobacco products has skyrocket and with the heavy IL, Cook County and Chicago sin taxes piled on top, we have de facto cigarette prohibition here for all but the very rich.

As with the 1918-1933 "noble experiment" in alcohol prohibition, it is inevitable that a black market in smokes would develop and it has, with all the predictability of Chicago's lousy weather or a Cubs losing streak.

Now, licensed Chicago merchants are getting into the act. Reportedly, kids on Devon can request purchase of a single cigarette from several provenders there.

That is illegal in Chicago, of course, but so were speakeasies in the 1920s.

There are only two places where I ever heard of store owners selling single smokes. Once in Daley's clout laden Bridgeport and once in New Orleans, a city which seesaws back and forth with Chicago for title to "Most Politically Corrupt American City."

When on a shrimp buying excursion to New Orleans in the 90s, I was accompanied by two black guys and resultantly got to see parts of the Big Easy that were generally off-limits to the usual white tourist. These two black guys regularly went down there to buy shrimp for transport and resale in Washington, D.C. and to visit "their New Orleans wives." Apparently they each had a wife in D.C. and another in New Orleans. The precise details of the legal nuptuals, if any, were rather murky, but it seemed to work for them.

Anyway, in one of the predominantly black areas that invariably went underwater a decade later, I went into a little corner 7-11 type shop and was astounded to see that Newport actually produced cigarette packs, containing only 5 cigarettes, for this impoverished market and that kids were sent down to the shop to pick up single cigarettes for grandma or grandpa that would be on sale for 35 cents or so.

Some years later, I was told by a Bridgeport drug store/liquor store owner that he had unearthed a supply of old Alpine cigarettes (remember them) that had been gathering dust, forgotten in his storage room since about the time, his neighbor, Richard J. Daley was making his first run for City Clerk. He began selling the old, stale Alpines individually, for a quarter or so, to the black customers, who would cross Wentworth Ave into forbidden Bridgeport to buy his overpriced booze.

The Bridgeport merchant told me that one of his neighbors, who worked at City Hall, would alert him when the City inspectors would be coming, and the Alpine singles would disappear, until the coast was again clear. At a quarter a piece, he made a tidy little profit on thost dusty old Alpines.

And now a new generation of South Asian Chicago merchants are engaging in the same practice on the far North side in the West Rogers Park area.

Whenever government sticks its nose into the free exchange of goods and services, provenders will find a way to skirt the law. It's in the age old tradition of Alphonse Capone and Bugs Moran.

As P.J. O'Rourke once noted: "Giving power and money to government is like giving whiskey and car keys to teen age boys."

Black Market Cigarette Trade in Chicago Parks

I knew it was just a matter of time. I predicted it months ago: a black market in cigarettes. And of course Chicago, in the true spirit of Alphonse Capone and Bugs Moran, has taken the lead.

One doesn't have to be a direct blood descendent of Adam Smith to comprehend that when there is a popular demand for a product and government arbitrarily curtails its availability, provenders will arise -- whether legally or not -- to supply and profit from the demand.

So it came as no surprise to me when the other day, while dog walking, I was approached by a rather seedy but eminently resourceful young entrepreneur, who asked me if I cared for a pack of Newports for "only" five bucks. It was a genuine bargain, given the fact that a simple pack of cigarettes, which costs about 30 cents to produce, now approaches $20 at Walgreens.

The budding young Rockefeller showed me the pack, which had Illinois, Cook County and Chicago tax stamps affixed, which led me to believe that he was either a merchandising and cost accounting genius or a thief.

His torn blue jeans and stubble of beard suggested the latter.

I declined the purchase, not because I am above buying hot goods, but rather due to an aversion to menthols. I told him to get back to me if his purchasing agent should happen to acquire Pall Mall straights.

But within a half an hour this guy was the most popular fellow in the park. Teenaged kids from Sullivan High School and St. Scholastic H.S. were literally running after him throwing fins at his feet, much to the envy of the illegal-alien elote vendors, whose business was dismal by comparison. (Look for them to expand their inventory any day now, "I'll take an elote slathered in mayonnaise and a pack of bootleg Marlboro Lights.")

So why is there now an embyonic -- and soon to be burgeoning -- black market trade in tobacco products in Chicago?

Well, in March of this year, the Hyde Park Messiah (to the delight of health conscious school marms, do-gooders and hall monitors everywhere) signed into law, Nancy Pelosi's 62 cent per pack increase on cigarettes, bringing the total federal tax to $1.01 per pack -- more than 3 times the actual cost of production. Piled on top of this are Illinois, Cook County and Chicago "sin taxes," which have driven the cost of smokes into the stratosphere and supply into the hands of Al Capone wannabees.

It was the inane goo-goo experiment spawned by the little old ladies of the temperance movement that managed to elevate Alphonse "Scarface" Capone from a lowly Bronx olive oil saleman to the lofty heights of a multimillionaire organized crime kingpin.

Now the accidental Illinois Governor, Pat Quinn, wants another 60 c state tax increase on cigarettes.

I am reasonably confident that in the coming months my dog and I will be running into a lot of new entrpreneurs in the Chicago parks, ready to cash in on the new tobacco prohibition folly.





This should really come as no surprise to anyone in Chicago.