Listening to the Delaware COVID-19 update on WDEL this Tuesday afternoon (11/24/2020), Governor Carney caught my attention when he said don’t come to Delaware for your alcohol!
One-hundred-two years ago, public health and police officials in Wilmington had a similar situation during the Pandemic of 1918. That October, Delaware authorities closed public gathering places, including saloons, taprooms, and taverns and those establishments remained closed for most of the month.
Saloons Thrown Open
Toward the end of October, the influenza eased so the Delaware Board of Health lifted the ban on public assembly at 1 a.m. Sunday, October 27. The reopening of taverns had to wait until Monday – this marked twenty-six days that the board kept saloons shuttered. However, a great deal of thirst had accumulated, as from early morning until late at night that Monday, John Barleycorn held sway in the City for the first time in nearly a month.
Once saloon keepers threw open the doors, people crowded around the bars. This rush was apparent anywhere one looked downtown, the spectacle of intoxicated men on streets being a common one. Officers booked over 100 lawbreakers in the lockup before midnight. The authorities likened the situation to the days when the powder plants at Carney Point were in the making, and the patrol wagons were loaded up with intoxicated men at the boat wharves.
While these scenes unfolded, the police patrol wagon, which had remained idle for a couple of weeks took on a new lease on life. For a while it was thought that the “little patrol [wagon],” which had been undergoing repairs during the slump in business, would have to be placed in operation. But Patrolman Harry Foreman, the mechanic, not anticipating any rush in business, did not have it ready to roll. ((Disciples of Bacchus Hold Day of Revelry,” Morning News, October 29, 1918))
After Wilmington’s barrooms opened, another problem developed. In Chester, Philadelphia, Carney’s Point, Camden and other nearby sections of New Jersey and Pennsylvania saloons were still closed because the quarantine was still in place, so thirsty people flocked to Wilmington. This influx of the visitors from Philadelphia seeking liquor was a menace to public health and morals, to say nothing of a nuisance as there were more intoxicated men on the streets than others. Consequently, the Board of Police Commissioners and Chief Black issued an order closing Wilmington’s saloon at 7 o’clock every night until these nearby places lifted the quarantines ((“Saloons Closed by Police Order at Seven o’clock,” Morning News, November 1, 1918))
Liquor Establishments Reopen
Wilmington’s Mayor John Lawson felt the matter would adjust itself after the saloons opened in the neighboring states. And in a week or so it did as strangers stopped coming to the Delaware to “liquor up.” The other places had lifted the local quarantines in Pennsylvania and New Jersey.