[URBAN NOTE] Torontoist on how the Junction went dry in 1904

[rfmcdonald]

Torontoist shared a Historicist feature, "A Carnival of Vice", describing how, back when it was an independent town near the beginning of the 20th century, the Junction went dry.

In 1878, the federal government passed the Canada Temperance Act, drafted by Liberal Senator Richard William Scott. Sometimes known as the Scott Act, this legislation granted individual municipalities the right to put alcohol sale to a plebiscite, and to enforce a ban on its sale should the majority of voters favour one. Implementing such a ban on alcohol sale was generally known as exercising “local option,” and over the years several Ontario communities chose to take advantage of this right. One such community was Toronto’s Junction neighbourhood, which banned the sale of alcohol in 1904, while still an independent municipality.

In 1903, the Junction was the town of Toronto Junction; its reported population in October of that year was just shy of 7,000. Convenient rail access, low tax rates, and a local customs office had served to attract many factories to the area, which in turn spurred commercial growth, particularly along Dundas Street. These amenities, coupled with the Junction’s six hotels, served to make the town a popular stopping point for those going to and from the city of Toronto. The local hotels did steady business, with each maintaining a barroom where the bulk of the profits were made.

The factors which brought enforced temperance to the Junction were many and nuanced. While the temperance movement was growing across much of Canada, there was local concern over the unfortunate reputation that the Junction was earning for itself.

Both Heydon House, located at the northwest corner of (Old) Weston Road and St. Clair, and Brown’s Hotel, located further north, had a reputation for fights and general rowdiness. For several years Heydon House, the Junction’s largest hotel in 1903, was also a regular venue for cockfighting, and sometimes the subject of police raids. On February 22, 1903, Rev. T.E.E. Shore gave a sermon at the Annette Street Methodist Church on “Some Needed Reforms in Toronto Junction.” Shore outlined several problems he believed to be plaguing the town, including the existence of gambling dens, to which he accused the local police of brazenly turning a blind eye. He reserved most of his ire, however, for the local hotels, the primary (legal) purveyors of alcohol in the Junction. The Star quotes Shore as saying “Many a poor fallen girl has told me down in yonder mission how she fell into sin and degradation in Junction hotels. Men do not go to those hotels merely for refreshments or to quench their thirst. They are cesspools, I say. Cesspools of harlotry, vice, and iniquity.”

The sermon ignited a debate over local option which raged in Toronto Junction throughout 1903. The town divided into those who saw alcohol as the root of the problem, and the moderates who argued that they could make do with more vigorous enforcement of the current laws and an investigation into the liquor licensing system. The pro-local option side was led by several prominent townspeople, in particular the Protestant ministers, who increasingly called for prohibition in their sermons. The cause was also championed by some members of the town council, particularly Councillors A.H. Perfect and future MPP William A. Baird. The “Antis,” as the opposition was known in the press, were understandably led by the local hotel owners, whose livelihood depended on alcohol sales; on the town council, their political champion was councillor and former Junction mayor James Bond.