Was Alcohol Available After the Pubs Closed?

[DVV]

I wasn't joking, it was available anytime.

I've lived in Africa for years and the social conditions are obviously similar to Europe 19th century in this respect. In fact, the rules and effects of poverty are universal.
Women sell matches and flowers on the streets (ready to sell themselves as well, if you ask), there are common lodging houses, etc etc. After the "official bars" are close, nothing easier than knocking here and there to get glasses in private (and poor) houses that would serve you local and incredibly cheap drinks.

[mariab]

The Imperial Club? Come on Maria... That was the club Harris, Levy and Lawende were leaving when they reportedly saw Kate Eddowes with a man at the entrance to Church Passage.

Oops! Demon newbie strikes again. For some reason I misled myself into thinking of some anarchist club. Thank you so much for the thread Hunter. I'm still not properly informed on TONS of details pertaining to the Mitre Square case.

I've lived in Africa for years and the social conditions are obviously similar to Europe 19th century in this respect. In fact, the rules and effects of poverty are universal. {...} After the "official bars" are close, nothing easier than knocking here and there to get glasses in private (and poor) houses that would serve you local and incredibly cheap drinks.

When I was in Kayamandi, a township outside Cape Town, the local “pub“ was a shack where they only served locally made beer which hardly had any alcohol. Though I'm sure that in "harder" townships they sell local moonshine and stuff.

[DVV]

Home-made beers are always light in Africa. Home-distilled are

[mariab]

For real? Only been to South Africa so far.
(And again, highjacking occurs.) ;-)

[DVV]

I don't think this is highjacking, it completes what Hunter rightly said about the club. For sure it was available anytime.

[Hunter]

My neck of the woods was famous for its moonshiners, bootleggers and clubs that had open bars, gambling and 'professional women'; all of this at a time when everything like this was illegal. Yet, everyone knew where these places were. The local law was paid off and when the state or federal authorities tried to make trouble, someone usually got tipped off beforehand. If a local sheriff came along and tried to 'play it straight', money was spent to elect someone else or he was dealt with more harshly; perhaps the name Buford Pusser might ring a bell.

I learned how to drive by taking my father and my uncle down a winding back country road on a Friday night to a place called 'Tomcat's'... a little cinder block building at the end of a gravel road in the woods. We'd pull up to a small window at the side. A burly old man with a towel slung over his shoulder would appear and take their order; usually a few half pints of 'Old Crow'. I'd drive while they sampled some of it on the way home. The more they drank, the more they'd test my driving skills by putting a foot on the accelerator while I'd frantically fight the steering wheel (which had no power steering) around the sharp curves of a county road that was barely wide enough for two vehicles to pass at a slow speed. Man... what the do-gooders would make of that now days. But, to this day, I've never been in an accident that I caused...and I've been driving now for nearly forty years.

Back to Victorian East London... one of the social writers- maybe Greenwood or Williams... can't remember- wrote about visiting one of the 'Sly Houses' on a Sunday morning off Whitechapel Road. Its 'front' was a barber shop that took in patrons for a shave. They had quite an assembly line set up for running the customers through. When finished, certain patrons would be asked if they wanted to 'see the scarlet runners'. They were led out back into an alley where the curious vines were growing; past them and into the back of a pub where other clean shaven patrons were having a round in the kitchen.

It was a well ordered setup; the customers were told to stay quiet and a lookout was posted in an upper story window to keep watch for a 'blue' who might cause trouble. If such an emergency arose, the lookout would signal down to the proprietor; the pewter mugs would be swept away and the owner's wife would quickly display a breakfast setting until the 'all clear' was given.

Yep, David, folks are always pretty much going to do what they want to do and someone will find a way to make a profitable business out of it. Free enterprise will always win out over any form of government or social standards because human nature trumps everything put in its path.