Hello and welcome to another episode of No Such Thing as a Fish, a weekly podcast coming

to you from four undisclosed locations in the UK.

My name is Dan Schreiber, I am sitting here with James Harkin, Andrew Hunter Murray, Anna

Chuchinski and once again we have gathered around the microphones with our four favorite

facts from the last seven days and in no particular order here we go starting with you Andy.

My fact is that along with their drink New Yorkers in bars used to be served a sandwich full

of rubber.

What?

Yummy.

Yum yum yum.

Why on earth would that be?

Well, this is a sort of legal loophole that bars had to jump through in order to serve

their customers.

So, this is all to do with something called the Reigns Law, basically.

People were trying to curb public drunkenness in the 1890s in America and in particular in

New York and this politician called John Reigns got this law passed which was designed

to put nasty bars out of business.

So there were various, you know, the cost of a liquor license tripled and you had to keep

your curtains open on a Sunday so that police officers could post all sorts of things.

The law was partly designed to shut down Sunday drinking and that was very annoying for

people and for bars because it was the most profitable day of the week and it was most

people's only day off.

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