Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control

On 23 February 1934 the speaker of the house signed a bill to create the Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control.

Temperance crusaders were active in Virginia long before the ratification of the Eighteenth Amendment in 1919. First the General Assembly enacted local-option laws that allowed voters to decide if their communities would be "wet" or "dry." The Anti-Saloon League, under the guidance of the Reverend James Cannon, Jr., campaigned long and hard against the evils of drink. Then, a statewide prohibition law, known as the Mapp Act, closed all the saloons in Virginia in 1916, but allowed every household to import from outside the state one quart of liquor, three gallons of beer, or one gallon of wine per month. National prohibition followed, and Virginians lost their "one quart law."

Compulsory abstinence proved unpopular and impossible to enforce. In 1933 Virginians voted to ratify the Twenty-first Amendment repealing prohibition and to devise a plan for liquor control. Governor John Garland Pollard, a loyal prohibitionist, warned "Now that prohibition is doomed, the supreme question of the hour is: What new weapon shall we adopt to combat this age-old evil?"

That new "weapon" turned out to be the first state agency of its kind in the nation, the Alcoholic Beverage Control Board. The ABC became responsible for the distribution and sale of hard liquor and issued licenses for the sale of wine and beer. Today, it exercises law enforcement powers, provides alcohol-related educational programs, and is a major source of revenue for the commonwealth.