Between campus and the Log Cabin Gallery is Davis’s downtown: a shoebox of an area where numbered streets and lettered lanes guarantee no collegiette™ will lose their way –a plus for those drunkenly spilling out of Froggy’s on a Thursday night. However, between the streets, Davis boasts a hefty total of 9 downtown bars.
Over 100 years ago, in 1867, Davis (with a population of only 500) proudly maintained that same number; an embarrassment for us today, considering our population has grown to 65,000. Obviously, this was a town established with an eye to the future –creating enough bars to keep party go-ers comin’ back for more rounds, Thursday through Sunday.
So does this mean Davis was the original college party town? Can we give credit to our little city for beginning the weekend (give or take some weekdays) binge drinking routine? Well, unfortunately, collegiettes™, it was us who actually tarnished this little town on the prairies’ drinking record when we took away vodka’s right to our townspeople’s throats exactly 100 years ago.
Albeit the free flowing shots of vodka gargling down the throats of UCD students each weekend, the university’s pupils haven’t always had the pleasure of kicking a few back after a long week of studies.
Back in 1911, Davis collegiettes™ sought to ban sales of the “devil’s drink.”
After two failed propositions, the Women’s Christian Temperance Union succeeded in giving alcohol vendors the boot in the 1911 election, enacting a law that banned the sale of alcohol within a 3-mile radius of UCD’s campus.
Prohibition throughout the U.S. ended in 1933. However, the female group’s ban of alcohol sales in Davis lasted until 1979. Imagine: Monday Night Football (and FantasyFootball) without beer; conceptualize being legally restrained from making The Brady Brunch into a drinking game; lastly –and most painfully- picture belting out “I Am Woman” stone sober at karaoke night. That was a Davis collegiette’s™ life in the 70’s, my friends. And, in my opinion, the logical reason the Marley flower became so popular during this time.
So, happy anniversary to the 1911 ban on alcohol sales! It lasted over 50 years –a lifetime more than most of us can grant our livers.
Since 1980, UCD’s students have been doing their fair share to catch up on all the tequila shots and jell-o shooters deprived from their thirsty throats for the majority of the 1900’s. To toast the occasion, take a collegiettes’™ night out on the (Davis down) town and treat your girls to a Wicky Wacky Woo, practically a rite of passage for any Davisite over 21 years of age.
Just don’t let your friends down too many…we’ve seen what happens when collegiettes™ develop grudges against alcohol.
Furthermore, I’d like to avoid a prohibition movement banning me from Froggy’s and Ket Mo’s barstools. And, if there are collegiettes™ out there attempting to imitate the actions of the Women’s Christian Temperance Union, snaps to you for being revolutionaries–but please wait until after this collegiette™ graduates to get political.
Edited by: Amy Coyle
photo source: daviswiki.org