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"Spread Eagle" opened
"Spread Eagle" takes one of thirty original liquor licenses. -
Spread Eagle now known as Split Crow
"Spread Eagle" now known as "Split Crow." -
First Temperance Group
The first organized temperance group was founded in Pictou County in 1827. -
Joseph Howe speaks against Prohibition
Joseph Howe, delivered a passionate speech in 1855 against prohibition, arguing that if alcohol was to be banned because it was dangerous, so too should Nova Scotia ban fire, gunpowder, and women. -
Protests against license renewals
“The more licences, the more drinking and drunkenness,” the temperance movement wrote in an 1875 calendar tract. -
Canada-wide Temperance
12 of the 16 Nova Scotian counties opted into the Canada-wide Temperance Act of 1878, and in the other four, which included Halifax City, liquor licenses were renewed annually only with the approval of two-thirds of the electorate. -
Nova Scotian counties opt out of temperance
12 of the 16 Nova Scotian counties opted into the Canada-wide Temperance Act of 1878, and in the other four, which included Halifax City, liquor licenses were renewed annually only with the approval of two-thirds of the electorate. -
Nova Scotia forced to sign Temperance Act
Liberal premier George Henry Murray, who had an alleged fondness for liquor,” was ultimately forced to sign the Nova Scotia Temperance Act into legislation in 1910 to retain power. -
Religion vs. alcohol
According to the historian E.R Forbes, Methodists, Presbyterians, Baptists, Roman Catholics and Anglicans started to engage in a “social gospel” that sought to rid the province of personal sin, using the pulpit to urge ministers to promote temperance. -
War Measures Act includes Prohibition
The federal government invoked national prohibition in the War Measures Act. -
Halifax is Dry
three successive efforts by a Conservative party that took up the temperance cause made Halifax dry come 1916. -
War Measures Act ends
When the war ended, individual provinces were given the power to vote on whether or not prohibition should remain. Nova Scotia started drinking immediately. -
Prohibition returns
Halifax was the only county to not vote strongly in favour of prohibition, which was reimposed in 1921. -
Doctors are against prohibition
Even the Canadian Medical Association, which in a 1926 general meeting “strongly disapproved” of their being "forced to bear practically the entire brunt of the enforcement of (the Temperance) Act" as doctors and dentists could not easily sell medicinal liquors. -
Mandatory old age pensions
Conservative premier Edgar Rhodes did not openly support prohibition as his party once did, and a royal commission recommended that government-controlled liquor sales serve as a revenue source for pensions. -
Prohibition ends
Money from alcohol sales is earmarked for old age pensions, legislated into existance in 1927. Only Legions can sell alcohol. -
Dorothy Duncan writes about drunks.
Writer Dorothy Duncan noted that because Halifax lacked taverns, men congregated dangerously on street corners. -
Plebicite in favour of alcohol
a Nova Scotia plebiscite voted 10787 to 5445 in favour of allowing beer and wine to be sold by the glass and bottle. -
Sea Horse Tavern opens
In September of 1948, the Sea Horse Tavern, operated by the Carleton hotel, was the first tavern to open since Halifax’s 1916 prohibition, charging 25 cents for a pint of Maritime-brewed bottled beer and 30 cents for a pint of Central Canadian beer
