On the eve of the day the Ontario Temperance Act took effect —Sept. 16, 1916 — Torontonians filed into bars and liquor stores for what they believed would be their last night ever of public drinking.

It was a Friday.

The Toronto police took this very, very seriously.

“The whole police force will be ready at a moment’s notice to cope with and quell any trouble,” Chief Grasett told the Star. Every officer on the day and night shifts was put on standby, in the expectation that a booze-fuelled riot would consume downtown Toronto.

Prohibition Eve turned out to be fairly uneventful.

“With prohibition only a few hours away, little could be seen that would lead a stranger to think that King Alcohol was making his last stand in the open bars of the Province,” the Star said.

“At noon today the bars were no more crowded than on other Saturdays. The patrons were orderly and drinking carefully. A tour of the downtown hotels revealed a remarkable absence of inebriation.”

While liquor stores saw their cheaper stock disappear almost immediately, arrests for public drunkenness were scarcely higher than usual. Police officers stood in groups of two or three at the corner of every downtown intersection, “but fortunately, they were not called upon to exercise authority more than usual,” the Star reported.

Prohibition in Canada, unlike the U.S., was mandated by province. It officially lasted longest in Ontario, though the Temperance Act allowed Ontarians to distill or import their own alcohol, and to drink wine in private.

In 1921 the province banned importation of alcohol — but that rule was eased in 1927 with the repeal of prohibition and the establishment of the LCBO.