For as long as anyone can remember, everyone in the Rural Municipality of Hanover thought the Manitoba community was dry.

But a recent legal review ahead of a referendum this fall has shown a bylaw banning liquor was never actually passed.

Reeve Stan Toews told the SteinbachOnline.com staff started to do extensive research into the bylaw looking as far back as 1880.

The town held a referendum in 2006 seeking to permit the sale of liquor, but that was defeated by just 29 votes.

That vote was invalid, the town's lawyers said, because the question of permitting alcohol sales was not relevant.

"While the vote against authorizing the sale of liquor expressed the majority opinion of the electorate at the time, it did not have the result of implementing a local option bylaw prohibiting the sale of liquor in Hanover," the lawyers' report said.

There is just one liquor store in the municipality, which received approval in the 1970s.