Photo by Amber Wilkie

Yay! It’s Repeal Day, the day on which we celebrate the 1933 constitutional amendment that abandoned the wrong-headed policy of prohibition.

Well, everywhere but the District, that is.

As local author Garrett Peck explained in his wonderful book Prohibition in Washington, D.C.: How Dry We Weren’t, the District’s status as a federal colony meant that not only did we get prohibition before anybody else (two years before!), but it also remained on the books longer than everywhere else, until March 1, 1934.

So if you’re going to knock a few back tonight to remember the day that almost everyone in the U.S. could enjoy a beer again, don’t forget that if it were still 1933, we’d all still be buying moonshine from local bootleggers and visiting one of the many speakeasies that popped up around town.

Isn’t second-class citizenship, wonderful? Cheers!