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 The loopholes in the 11-page Alberta Liquor Act were quickly identified
and exploited. While the public had voted in favour of Prohibition, nearly
40,000 Albertans had cast their vote in the other direction and an effective
system for obtaining spirits soon developed.
Alcohol, not surprisingly,
quickly became the prescribed cure for numerous “ailments”. Further, spirits
were still flowing in neighbouring British Columbia and although
Saskatchewan had gone “dry” a year earlier, alcohol could still be shipped
in from the two neighbouring provinces, as under the Act importation was not
illegal. As long as a household stuck to their quotas, there was nothing
illegal about the practice as a means to quench a thirst. Liquor poured in
and out of the province as local producers shipped their products to Saskatchewan
and British Columbia and manufacturers in the two neighbouring provinces
dispatched their shipments into Alberta.
Enterprising individuals were quick
to identify the opportunity that the Liquor Act afforded and the era of the
bootlegger began. After all, there was money to be made hauling carloads of
liquor across the border into Alberta, and at the time it was not illegal.
 The situation changed in 1918. With liquor flowing steadily into the
province the effectiveness of Prohibition to put and end to drunkenness and
the resulting social ills was somewhat dubious. Temperance groups once again
lobbied the government, this time to revise the Liquor Act. The amendments
that followed closed some of the loopholes—liquor purchased by
pharmacists, scientists or church leaders now had to be obtained first from
a government vendor and quantities accurately recorded, and the Alberta
Provincial Police (APP), responsible for enforcing the Act, was given
increased power to fulfill its mandate.
The problem of importation was dealt with for a time by a Dominion
order-in-council that prohibited the importation of
 liquor into Canada and
banned the shipment of the intoxicating beverages between the provinces for
the duration of WWI and then for a further 12 months. By January 1920,
therefore, bootleggers were once again free to bring liquor shipments across
provincial borders.
The traffic was soon
and once again outlawed, this time
by a provincial plebiscite in the fall of 1920. On February 1, 1921,
importation of liquor into Alberta was illegal. Adding to the increasing
legislation was the enactment of Prohibition in the United States in July
1919.
 Bootleggers in Alberta nevertheless earnestly continued their trade,
although now it was entirely illegal and APP forces were more intent than
ever to halt the traffic.
Since its creation in 1917, the APP
had enforced the Liquor Act through five divisions that blanketed the
province. One of the challenging divisions was “D” Division, which extended
east and west from Lethbridge to the Saskatchewan and British Columbia and
south to the United States border. The mining communities of the Crowsnest
Pass fell within this division and had, along with much of the surrounding
area, voted against Prohibition. It was also where Emilio Picariello made his
daring liquor runs from the town of Coleman into British Columbia and across
the Continental Divide to Fernie, where he would load his car with alcohol to
sell upon his return to Alberta.
 Enforcement of Prohibition in the Crowsnest Pass proved to be a challenge
for the APP. Roadblocks and checkpoints were
easily avoided by the bootleggers as friends, customers and associates kept
their eyes open for the officers and unmanned roads. As well, bootleggers
often travelled in small groups with a lead, and liquor-free, car acting as
scout. If any police were ahead, it was a simple matter for the lead car to
turn and warn the trailing, booze-heavy following car in time for it to
return to the refuge of the BC border. It was a game in which few arrests and even fewer convictions occurred.1
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Heritage Community Foundation Presents
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