Chapter 52 – A Speakeasy, Really?
Aspergers. What’s Your Excuse?
Vice is much less romantic in real life than as characterized in many movies and TV shows. Remember Miami Vice, two guys rolling around in Miami in expensive clothes and even more expensive cars? This story gives you a peek into just how sordid it really was.
When I first heard the word speakeasy in the academy, I thought it was a reference to an archaic institution from prohibition.
Surprisingly, they were talking about the current time and speakeasys still existed.
Pennsylvania, established by religious groups, enacted some of the most conservative laws in the country concerning the sale and consumption of alcohol.
New York, the drinking age was eighteen, and you could buy alcohol in almost any convenience store.
In the South you could get it in a gas station, convenience store, or Piggly Wiggly supermarket.
In Pennsylvania, the drinking age was twenty-one, and the only proper identification for the sale of liquor was a state-issued Liquor Control Board ID card. Not even a driver’s license was sufficient. No LCB card, no alcohol.
Beer, by the case, was only available in a beer distributor or by the six-pack in a bar where the limit was two. Only state-owned and operated State Stores could legally sell wine or liquor.
Bars operated from eight in the morning until two in the morning the next day only, except after-hours clubs, which could stay open until three in the morning.
The state prohibited alcohol sales on Sunday, with the weird exception of Inns, which still existed in the 1970s, distinguished by their integrated restaurants and rooms for rent. There was only one of these I knew, the Blue Bell at the corner of 70th Street and Woodland Avenue.
People developed workarounds, which the state labeled vice crimes. One of these was running over to the New Jersey side of the Delaware River to buy untaxed liquor in their commercial liquor stores or down I-95 into the State of Delaware for the same reason.
Liquor in Pennsylvania required a State Tax Stamp Label over the lid, or we would arrest you and confiscate the liquor.
In the inner-city, speakeasys were a popular workaround.
The academy described it thus: The operators of the speakeasys accumulated liquor from assorted sources in assorted-sized containers and held parties in their homes after the bars closed.
The party was a ruse to explain why people were in this home drinking off hours. The proprietors of these speaks were selling drinks like a bar and charging a substantial markup, usually 200% or more.
They would also sell bottles-to-go, usually the small pint-sized ones you could stick in your pocket.
Some speak owners placed a birthday cake on the dining room table to reinforce the idea of a party, in case the police should happen onto the place.
It was almost impossible to find these places as a uniformed officer unless someone was mad enough at the owner to drop a dime on them. We usually didn’t know where they were.
One morning at about five, I was relaxing in my car, watching the snowfall. It was a nice respite from the busy nights and incessant radio chatter; in this neighborhood, when it snowed, everything stopped.
Add the early hour, and it was nice and quiet.
The two inches of snow on the sidewalk grew as a nice tranquil display of large flakes floated down on the neighborhood.
The contrast to the normal routine made me realize just how hectic this place was. I was enjoying the dancing snowflakes; police activity the furthest thing from my mind.
Until I noticed movement to my right.
It was a man staggering down the side street. As he came to the corner, he saw the police car, and it got him so rattled he slipped and fell.
I got out to help him up.
When I reached to help him, he recoiled and reached inside his coat. I pushed on his hand, trapping it so he couldn’t pull it out. I could feel the bulge under his coat.
I reached in over his hand, expecting a weapon, but it was a pint bottle of gin.
I guess he was trying to avoid a pinch for the gin, so he was instinctively hiding it. Or, perhaps he was checking to see if it broke during the fall.
My concern was my safety; I was checking to see if it was a gun.
When I realized what it was, I set it aside and stood him up. A thought hit me. Where did he get the bottle? I checked the bottle. No PA tax stamp. I handcuffed him and put him in the back of my patrol car.
It hit me! He just came from a speak, and left me a trail directly to it! There was no one else on the street. The only footprints in the snow were his, leading back up the sidewalk.
I called for my sergeant, who hated speaks, and told him what I found.
He said, “Take a walk up and see what you see.”
I walked back in the footprints to a house, which stood out like a Christmas Tree, lit up among the darkened ones surrounding it.
I could hear music and loud conversation through the front windows.
The sergeant was delighted.
He said, “Call for a wagon.”
When the wagon arrived, we put my new friend in the back and drove to the house. We knocked on the door, and when a woman opened it, her eyes almost left their sockets.
The sergeant said, “We have a complaint of a disturbance here.”
The woman said, “No, we’re just having a party.”
The sergeant said, “You don’t mind if we come in to check, do you?”
She said, “No.”
In we went.
There was a nice bar in the dining room where several patrons were loudly discussing Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle. There were couches in the living room against the walls, occupied by others in various states of mumbling inebriation and semi-consciousness.
The best part was a large cake in the middle of the dining room table that was so old, I think Moses put it there when he went up the mountain.
Barely visible on top – Happy Birthday – and a smudge! The name had bled into the once icing, now grey concrete. The icing cracked around the shrunken center, and the candles pointed in every direction.
Long ago, someone poked a finger in the cake, exposing layers now hard as stone.
This prop sat so long it turned to rock. The proprietor was not wasting her profits on new props.
The entrepreneur and her patrons got a ride to the district. We boxed the liquor for confiscation. We hauled away three cases of pint-sized bottles, the stock from behind the bar, and several cases of beer.
This is just a glimpse—there’s much more to uncover in the full book.