Ridgefield once had a long battle over booze, even banning its sale for decades. As early as 1800, Rev. Samuel Goodrich complained of “grog-drinkers and brandy tipplers,” but a temperance movement didn’t gain a foothold until the 1850’s, perhaps encouraged by recent tragedies – for example, the day after Thanksgiving in 1852, diarist Anna Resseguie noted, ‘‘Today the bell tolled for Mr. Eben Gilbert, found dead in a ditch, lying with face downward, his bottle by his side.’’
Two years later, Congregational pastor Clinton Clark called for prohibition, maintaining the only time alcohol is appropriate is ‘‘to him that is ready to perish.’’
Then in 1872, the state passed a law permitting towns to ban alcohol sales. That August, 40 people sought a Town Meeting to consider ‘‘the propriety of instructing the Selectmen not to recommend any person to be licensed to sell liquors in the Town of Ridgefield.’’ They believed ‘‘the sale and use of a beverage of intoxicating liquors is a great curse of any community, productive of much of the crime and misery which affects society.’’ By a two-to-one margin, voters banned the sale of intoxicating liquors, except for medicinal use.
However, by April 1873, some were getting thirsty. Twenty-five men petitioned to rescind the ‘‘no license’’ vote, resulting in one of the most ‘‘spirited’’ town meetings in Ridgefield history. George Lounsbury, later governor of Connecticut, proposed the sale of ‘‘spirituous and intoxicating liquors, ale and lager beer’’ be allowed. Up stood George’s brother Phineas, also a future governor. A temperance leader, Phineas decried drink and got the meeting to approve a two-hour paper ballot vote, allowing him to run up and down Main Street gathering supporters. When the ballots were counted, 104 favored alcohol sales, 111 opposed.
Ridgefield would remain dry for decades.
Nonetheless, drinking problems persisted. In 1902, Rev. Horace Byrnes told Methodists he found empty liquor bottles behind their Main Street church, consumed perhaps by ‘‘husbands blighting the lives of their wives and blasting the future of their children’’ or by ‘‘boys who were breaking mothers’ hearts and bringing fathers’ gray heads in sorrow to the grave.’’
In 1909, the selectmen reacted to yet another petition to allow liquor sales by publishing the list of signers in The Ridgefield Press, ‘‘believing that the public would like to know the names of the voters who desire to introduce the saloon in our quiet village.’’ Pro-“saloon” contingent included the son of one of the selectmen and the son of a prohibitionist judge. When the vote was taken, Ridgefield remained dry.
While the town would allow liquor sales a few years later, “happy hour” was fleeting. In 1919, the 18th Amendment enacting Prohibition was ratified, taking effect a year later.
One Ridgefield result was the 1921 arrival of the Connecticut State Police, which had recently formed largely to help deal with Prohibition. Troop A, one of its first statewide stations, was on West Lane, right along a route favored by vehicles smuggling booze from New York into New England.
Soon state troopers were also cracking down on the locals. Regular raids targeted the Italian communities, who couldn’t believe that acquiring wine, so much a part of their culture, had become a crime. “For us who drink wine at lunch and dinner, the law was ridiculous,” an oldtimer told Italian historian Aldo Biagiotti.
“Speakeasies” appeared on Bailey Avenue, Grove and Prospect Streets, and North Salem Road as well as in Branchville — one was operated by a widow to support her six children. All were raided. Troopers lined up barrels of wine confiscated from cellars and smashed them with axes on roads like Bailey Avenue. As the liquid poured down the gutters, “several of the more enterprising citizens of the area ran out with buckets and scooped up the wine,” Malo Bedini would later recall.
They weren’t the only ones. When the Titicus River ran red with wine dumped by troopers, “farmers down river were watering their cows at the banks,” Biagiotti reported. The cows drank the wine-laced water and “on wobbly legs they wandered home to their stalls. Happy cows gave their milk most willingly that night.”
Long after Prohibition ended in 1933, many Italians would not forgive the state police. “They acted just like the German Storm Troopers,” said Franca Travaglini.
Oddly, the first post-Prohibition liquor store to open in town was operated by the Cott family, who’d soon abandon booze in favor of soft drinks — remember, “It’s Cott to be good!”?
Today, Ridgefield’s “grog-drinkers and brandy tipplers” have nine retailers and more than 20 licensed restaurants to quench their thirst. •
