New Britain herald., 1930-04-15
BY BRUCE CATTOE

BY BRUCE CATTOE
 Toronto, Ont. April 15.-The On taro bootlegger has fallen upon evil days since the government has gone into the liquor selling business, as the result of the repeal of the provinces dry law. His clientele has dWindled almost to the vanishing point. Where he used to sell liquor by the case, he now sells it by the pint and by the drink.
 Officials of the Ontario Liquor Control Board will assure you ot that; but if you want to get tcsti- mony from someone who isn't so in tinately connected with the work ing of the liquor control law you SC to Toronto police headquarters, to see what officials there say.
 There you are shown to the office of Staff Inspector David Mckinney, in charge of what Toronto calls the morality division" of the police force-the division that looks after vice, drunkenness, bootlegginS and the like.
 Inspector Mckinney. veteran of 40 years on the force, is em- phatic.
 Conditions are greatly inn proved now" he says. The boot legger is no longer a serious prob lem. Hes a small-scale operator and he doesn't cut much figure.
 Big Bootlegger No More
 we have got ride of the whole sale bootlegger - the dealer Il large quantities. Under the oll Ontario temperance act tprohibi- tion law the big distillers and breWeries, manufacturing for ex- port under the Dominion law. were our worst offenders. Booze would start out from their places, ostensibly for export, anI would get short-circuited back into Ontario. We have stopped all of that now.
 "Speakeases? We've always had few of them, and unless the average speakeasy's patient changes his ideas we always will. L-NNh Ill tiT oiu uf1NS, "lell N' had licensed bars, we had speak : easies. There was a certain class of men, you know, that could 20 into a hotel bar and get a glass of beer for 5 cents, but preferred instead to go 10 a speakeasy and pay bait a dollar for the same stuff because, you see, in the speakeasy they'd be in the com pany they delighted in, but in a real bar they'd be in respectable company.
 Drunkenness Not Increased
 "As 10 drunkenness we haven't noticed much change since the Ontario temperance act was replaced by the liquor control law. Hut conditions are infinite ly better than they were under the old open-bar regime.
 When we had bars here I've seen II bartenders working as hard as they could so in one ho- tel, with other bars a few blocks away all equally busy. At II o'clock at night the police always lad to flock around to stop tn, rows and pick up trunks. And W. had to watch out for robberies, too.
 Drunkenness is no problem 10 us now. Oh, there's an odd man thatIl get q little topheayy nov and again, and we'll bring him in, of course. For the first cffense he pays SIG; for the second he paws $50 and for the third he goes to jail for three months, with no O. ton of a fine. So, you see, drink CTS are pretty careful. Not many Of them can afford to pay $50 for getting drunk.
 Drinking is pretty well con- fined to the home now. The pen alty for drinking in an illegal place-whlch is any place but tha home, or the hotel room if the drinker is tourist--is a $25 fine, and that section of the law is en- forced right up to the hlt.
 Prohibition Was Worse"
 What drunkenness we have now isn't as bad as it was under the Ontario temperance act In those days they used to drink oh, anything; alcohol and ha,r tonics, and canned heat, and sho backing; the Lord knows what not, They'd get blind, raving drunk, and many of them died. We have none of that sort of thing now.
 Our trunks now are largely wine-drinliers. The stuff they get is cheap but it's sure of bein., good.
 There's one loopholc in the present law that accounts for Il good deal of the drunkenness, There's one way you can buy liquor in Ontario without a per-