STEINBACH, MAN.—A dry community in southern Manitoba has discovered it’s actually wet.

Staff with the Rural Municipality of Hanover discovered this week that a ban on alcohol sales, which has existed as long as anyone can remember, was never actually put into law. It’s something residents have always just assumed was official.

Like other communities in the area south of Winnipeg, where there is a large Mennonite population, Hanover has considered allowing booze sales in the past. Alcohol is readily available in stores and restaurants in some neighbouring communities.

Hanover held a referendum on allowing liquor in 2006, but it was defeated by a narrow 30-vote margin. City staff were preparing to hold another referendum this fall when they discovered no Hanover council had ever passed a bylaw to officially ban booze.

“We weren’t quite sure yet, so then we hired some municipal lawyers and they went through all the records and they could not come up with anything either,” said Reeve Stan Toews, who has lived in the area his whole life.

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