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Bootleggers – Prohibiting the Sale of Alcohol

Black and white photograph of the Chez Donat hotel. The two-storey hotel is located on the side of the road. A three-storey turret forms the right corner of the building. Each window is decorated with white curtains. The photograph was taken from the courtyard entrance in front of the hotel.

Postcard

Chez Donat 

Les Amis des Jardins de Métis Collection

Without a wharf, Metis was never a bootlegger’s paradise. But when prohibition restricted the sale of alcohol in both Ontario and the United States, Metis became a battleground.

In June 1931, Metis resident Sunny White and a sidekick from Matane were involved in a shootout in Cap-Chat with two officers of the Service Préventif of the Commission des Liqueurs. They rained bullets on inspectors Alfred Bilodeau and Zéphirin Verreault and their parked vehicle. White was described as the “chief of a group of bootleggers”. A seasoned criminal, he had several aliases and a long criminal record that included three years in Kingston Penitentiary. White and his accomplice were charged with attempted murder. They were sentenced to twenty-five years in prison on a lesser charge, but White was able to overturn the sentence on appeal.

Alcohol was seized from local barns where it was stockpiled for distribution and sale. Metis fought back by restricting the sale of liquor within its borders. In 1940 it denied an application from Mont-Joli entrepreneur Donat Falardeau to obtain a license from the Commission des Liqueurs to sell alcohol at “Chez Donat”, his hotel at the entrance to the village. The battle to limit the sale and consumption of alcohol in the village waged well into the 1960s.