Legal Beer Is Back

On April 7, 1933, at exactly 12.01 a.m., Prohibition officially ended. Since 1919 Americans had gone without legal beer having to be satisfied with near beer (alcohol by volume under .5% and was officially called cereal beverage) or knocking on a door with a peep hole in it and whisper “Louie sent me” or making homebrew.

Congress submitted the 21st Amendment, or repeal amendment, to state conventions in February 1933 and, in March, passed a 3.2-beer bill that allowed the manufacture, sale and consumption of beer. This left local governments scrambling to draft laws to regulate the sale of 3.2 beer. In Wicomico County Maryland the Newspapers of the time were filled with Beer licenses application notices. The notices fit one of two categories; Off sale or On Sale. In Delmar, Maryland two applications were E. L. Austin ( Austin’s Sea Food) and Louotta Gordy Culver ( Martha Washington Tourist Home). Both applied for On Sale licenses so the beer had to be drunk on premises. The Off Sale license allowed for selling beer in only a dozen containers or single containers of not less than five gallons.

Below are some Salisbury Legal Beer Joints