enthalpy

Wednesday, June 22, 2005


Great article about the neo-prohibition going on in Chicago. [via The Agitator.]
The city that once boasted as many 7,600 taverns in the early 1900s has just over 1,300 today. Now Mayor Richard Daley is pushing an ordinance that would make it easier to close taverns -- the latest volley in a battle against the kinds of liquor-selling establishments that some say are magnets for everything from prostitution to littering.

Add to that rapidly changing neighborhoods and a growing number of upscale residents who'd rather see a bistro than a bar on the corner, and it keeps getting tougher to find an honest-to-goodness bar to belly up to.

"The neighborhood bar used to be the country club of the community," said John Kelly, whose father opened Kelly's Pub the day after Prohibition ended and who started running it in 1957. "They've kind of gone by the wayside."
Imagine that. A city like Chicago without a neighborhood bar. Prohibition was still commonplace in the parched Bible-belt where I grew up, but to think about a huge city like Chicago, where you can't walk down the street and get a beer is just plain wrong.



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