The Indianapolis times. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1922-1965, 1928-09-08
BY WILLIAM PHILIP SIMMS

BY WILLIAM PHILIP SIMMS
Foreign Editor, Scripps- Howard Newspapers
STOCKHOLM, Sept. BIN most
American hotel and restaurants
there isn't any limit to the number
of drings you may have. Your
bootlegger is only too glad to supply
you. You may have to hide your
bottle under the table, or under a
napkin. But who minds that?
over here it's different. You are
rationed in restaurants and hotels
just as you are in Swedish homes.
So much and no more. And drinks
are served in certain specified pub
lie rooms. not in private chambers
upstairs"
Before noon, in hotels and restau-
rants, you get nothing. Between
noon and 8 p. M, you are etitled
to seven and a half centilitres. This
corresponds to one cocktail and a
portion of liquor with your
coffee.
Women get half-portions and no
body gets anything, at any time,
save in conjunction with a regular,
oest-to-goodness meal. Property
sandwiches don't go in Sweden.
Spirits Strictly Limited
After 6 p. m. you have a right to
fifteen centilitres. This amounts
to, let us say, two cocktails and
liqueor
That is all the spirits you get, try
as you may. I know, for 1 deliber-
ately set out to break the rule if I
could, and I failed 100 per cent, in
restaurant after restaurant.
The reason is simple. They have
removed all possibility of making
private profit from serving booze in
Sweden. There is nothing to gain
and everything to lose by pushing
sales or breaking rules. A hotel or
restaurant stands to lose very
valuable license by playing free and
easy with the law. Only such hotels
and restaurants as are known to be
both legitimate and above suspicion
are granted licenses to sell spirits.
The amount of liquors which any
hotel or restaurant may serve is
based upon the average number of
guests or customers it takes care of
over a considerable period of time.
Those obtaining licenses do so ON
contracts guaranteeing that no al
cohols will be purchased from any
source whatever save the system.
Prices Are Fixed
They also are bound, under pen
atty of license forfeiture and pros
ecu5ion, not to sell to minors, in
toxicated persons, disorderly peo-
pie, and so on, and in no case to
sell to any one person more than
the legal maximum. The law also
fixes prices.
Lastly, should they run short of
liquors due to some unusual num-
Der of visitors in the city or COM
munity, any supplementary allot-
ment, if obtained, would have to be
sold at exactly the same price as
the hotel or restaurant paid the
system. So, instead of a profit,
there would be a net loss, since
theer is always considerable break
age and waste.
Told by an American friend here
that I could not beat the game, I
undertook to do it if = could. Once
I thought I'd done it. One day at
lunch, after I had had my regula-
ton 71s centilitres of Schnaps and
liqueur, 1 told my waiter I'd like
kummel, a Dutch liqueur which I
pronounced "kimmel."
"a what?" he asked.
"a kimmel," I repeated.
ooh, a kimmel!" he echoed, a
light breaking in his face. yah,
yah! I get you. Sure, bring you
a kimmel."
Two minutes later he returned in
triumph, bearing plate. Upon the
plate was a packageof Camels.
Next: An interview with Stock
hOIm'S police chief.