With legislation surrounding the legalization of marijuana and products made from the cannabis plant making headlines in the state and across the country, the Photo Vault looks back to a different kind of prohibition — a time when simply sipping a spirit had been banned. But on March 22, 1935, it was legal once again to indulge in alcoholic beverages in Georgia. The state had ratified the 21st Amendment to the U.S. Constitution months earlier.
As early as colonial times efforts surfaced nationally to ban “demon rum” from polite society. Shortly after the Civil War, evangelical Protestants organized temperance movements. Their zeal flourished in state legislatures like Georgia’s, dominated by rural religious interests.
Georgia mandated statewide prohibition in 1908, one of 33 states to enforce prohibition by state law before the 18th Amendment was ratified in 1919.
To appease those who wanted to ban alcohol locally, the U.S. Congress passed the Webb-Kenyon Act in 1913 to enable states to enforce their individual alcohol prohibition laws within their borders. By that year, nine states (Georgia, Kansas, Kentucky, Maine, Mississippi, North Carolina, North Dakota, Oklahoma and West Virginia) had passed state prohibition laws. However, they were unable to prohibit the importation of alcohol across their borders because of the federal government’s control over interstate commerce.
Critics of the Temperance Movement argued it violated individual rights and would prove a genesis for crime and corruption. Prohibition brought bootleggers, organized crime and the death of thousands of federal law enforcement agents, but Georgia persisted in its pursuit of what state leaders saw as a good and just cause.
Although nationally alcohol consumption was legalized in 1933, Georgia still has 11 counties that aren’t fully “wet.”
• Bulloch County prohibits the retail sale of distilled spirits.
• Butts County prohibits the retail sale of distilled spirits.
• Coweta County prohibits the retail sale of distilled spirits.
• Decatur County prohibits the sale of distilled spirits for on-site consumption.
• Effingham County prohibits the retail sale of distilled spirits.
• Hart County prohibits the sale of distilled spirits for retail and on-site consumption.
• Lumpkin County prohibits the retail sale of distilled spirits.
• Murray County prohibits the sale of distilled spirits for retail and on-site consumption.
• Union County prohibits the retail sale of distilled spirits.
• Upson County prohibits the retail sale of distilled spirits. The sale of distilled spirits for on-site consumption was approved by vote in May 2014.
• White County prohibits the sale of distilled spirits for retail and on-site consumption.
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