Local Option

A BY LAW

TO PROHIBIT THE SALE BY RETAIL OF SPIRITUOUS, FERMENTED OR OTHER MANUFACTURED LIQUORS IN THE MUNICIPALITY OF THE TOWN OF KINGSVILLE.

The Municipal Council of the Town of Kingsville hereby enacts as follows:

1. That the sale by retail of Spiritous, fermented, or other manufactured liquors is and shall be prohibited in every tavern, inn or other house or place of public entertainment in the said municipality, and sale thereof, except by wholesale, is and shall be prohibited in every shop or place other than a house of public entertainment in the said municipality.

2. That the vote of the electors of the said Town of Kingsville will be taken on this by-law by the deputy-returning officers hereinafter named on Monday the third day of January One Thousand Nine Hundred and Ten commencing at nine o’clock in the morning and continuing until five o’clock in the afternoon.

The Kingsville Reporter, December 9, 1909 p.9

Carried.

The contest is over and the temperance forces have won out by straight majority of 117, the vote standing 257 for local option and 140 against, this gives a majority over the necessary three-fifths of eighteen. [. . .] As it should be, in a great moral question like this, the church organizations dropped all matters of creed and labored harmoniously together for the one object, and to this is largely due the success of the temperance forces. Whatever was done by the anti-local optionists to carry the day, the temperance people have this to say that the fight on their side was clean, free from trickery and unscrupulous tactics. After the result was made known in the evening all the bells in town rang out lustily, and the small boy on the street, in whose interest largely the battle was fought, gave vent to his feelings by many a war whoop.  All the religious denominations held a combined thanksgiving service in the Methodist church, and so ended one of the greatest moral battles in the history of Kingsville.

The Kingsville Reporter, January 6, 1910 p.3

Local Option.

For the benefit of those who may not know the penalities (sic) provided by the Liquor License Act in Local Option Districts, we give the following extracts –

Any person who sells liquor in local option territory is liable to a fine of $100 to $500 and costs, or three months in jail for the first offence.

Any person who appears intoxicated on the streets in a local option town renders himself liable to a fine of from $20 to $50 for the first offence and he may also be compelled to divulge the name of the person from whom he secured the liquor. Failing to furnish the information, he may be sent to jail for three months. The fine for the second conviction is $40 to $60 or imprisonment, and for third offence three months at hard labor.

The Kingsville Reporter, December 18, 1913 p.1

Informations were laid today by Inspector Stone before P.M. Smart against the King’s Hotel and Waseif David, charging them with selling beer containing too much alcohol.

The Kingsville Reporter, June 28, 1917 p.5

KINGSVILLE GOES WET!

Local Option Repealed In Record Vote

Voters of the Town of Kingsville went to the polls yesterday and repealed the local option by-law which has existed in the town since 1910, by a vote of 820 to 430, which gave a margin of 70 over the 60 per cent, majority required to change the law.

The Hotels for Kingsville Committee, referred to by many as the “wets,” received their majority in every poll . . .

The Kingsville Reporter, January 22, 1942 p.1