Prohibition and Selective Enforcement

Suppose mayors in certain cities and maybe a few governors during Prohibition decide to make a political statement by refusing to enforce alcohol laws. What happens?
 
That was essentially the case in Maryland. That state appropriated zero, repeat zero to enforce prohibition from inception to repeal. It wasn't very difficult to buy you name it in Baltimore in the '20s and early '30s.
 
If Prohibition ends roughly on schedule nothing much (like the Maryland example above). If it stays on the books for longer somehow or the strategy spreads to a whole bunch of states I could see growing pressure from the federal government and possibly regional friction as well.
 
This was the case for a time in some places in Tennessee after statewide Prohibition (a few years before National Prohibition) when the mayors of Nashville (Hilary Howse) and Memphis (the famous "Boss" E. H. Crump) refused to enforce Prohibition. Howse's statement on protecting saloons was "Protect them? I do better than that. I patronize 'em." This issue had split the Democrats (a state politician coincidentally named D.B. Cooper had a gun battle in the streets of Nashville with another state politician, Edward Carmack, editor of The Tennesseean, resulting in the latter's death) and let the Republicans gain a huge amount of power in the state during the Solid South era, with the two-term Republican governor Ben W. Hooper. Governor Hooper and the state courts essentially forced Howse and Crump to resign, but both men returned in the years to come (and ensured illegal saloons plus gambling operations stayed open in their cities) thanks to the networks they built which in large part depended on poor urban voters both black and white, and one key way of gaining support (used for decades later in Tennessee) was to have the police confiscate liquor and have the same police distribute it in precincts which needed some "greasing of the palms" during elections for favoured candidates.

Based on this, it's likely the temperance interests combined with political enemies of these politicians will interfere as much as possible. Any pretext to remove a politician will be used, and given how many local and state governments flirted with illegal practices, there's plenty of pretexts available. And for anti-temperance politicians, why not go the "Baptists and bootleggers" route and have your supporters pass out confiscated liquor to potential voters? And don't forget the federal government's ability to withhold funds, as famously done with how they refused highway funds to states which didn't raise the drinking age to 21. Overall a more instable and corrupt political landscape in the US.
 
He was the mob boss, not mayor, but that's what Tom Pendergast did in Kansas City: no alcohol arrests during the entire period of prohibition. It's a very interesting testimony to communication, as such a level of non-enforcement could never exist today.
 
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