The Grape Industry Chain

Attorney General Alexander Mitchell Palmer successfully persuaded President Wilson, and Prohibition soon took effect in the United States.

Because it was intended to prevent violent incidents, the US Government placed great importance on enforcing the Prohibition Act and imposed extremely stringent restrictions.

Manufacturing, selling, or even transporting alcoholic beverages with an alcohol content exceeding 0.5% was illegal. Offenders could face fines ranging from several thousand to tens of thousands of dollars at the light end, or years to decades of imprisonment and fines ranging from hundreds of thousands to millions of dollars at the heavy end.

For any business or individual, such punishments were exceedingly severe. This Prohibition also caused a tremendous uproar within the United States, drawing the dissatisfaction of numerous distilleries and workers in the alcohol industry.

Perhaps to avoid Prohibition stirring up a great storm at home, the US Government relaxed restrictions on private drinking to a certain extent.

It was not illegal for people to drink in their own homes, but drinking with friends or holding drinking banquets was against the law.

Drinking was also forbidden in public places. Violators could face fines of up to several thousand dollars and more than half a year in prison.

The differing sentences imposed on drinkers and alcohol industry workers made it clear that the US Government was mainly targeting distilleries and those employed in the alcohol trade.

After all, compared with the far broader population of drinkers, distilleries and alcohol industry workers were easier to pin down, and this could ensure that public discontent remained within certain limits rather than accelerating the chaos in the United States.

Of course, the US Government could not possibly ban all Americans from drinking overnight. For some people who loved alcohol as dearly as life itself, going a day without a drink