Sunday 22 November 2020

Boys in Public House

A quick follow-up to today's earlier post about underage girls drinking. Where I wondered if boys would have been treated the same way. The answer is, yes. At least in this case:

"Two sixteen-year-old lads were each fined 10s at Dundee Juvenile Police Court to-day, when they admitted consuming in a public house 2 pints of beer and two quarter gills of whisky. "
Dundee Evening Telegraph - Saturday 15 January 1944, page 2.

The boys were both younger and drank considerably more than the girls. They were fined, but not put on probation. Mmm.

I'll see if I can find more cases of underage drinking in the archives.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I'd be curious how this compares to non-wartime enforcement.

I know in the US they didn't dare change the drinking age to 21 until well after the Vietnam War was over and they weren't going to risk arresting 20 year olds back in the states after serving in combat.