From Charleston to Columbia With Love

No Rule Made In Columbia Goes Unbent In The City Of Charleston

Photo by Matt Benson on Unsplash

“It’s tempting to say, and probably true, that no rule made by Paris goes unbent in the city of Marseille.” That is the opening sentence of “Marseille’s Melting Pot” in the March 2012 National Geographic Magazine, by Christopher Dickey. Dickey was widely published and the son of poet James Dickey.

Reading Dickey’s piece brought to mind a comparison of the port city of Charleston, founded around 1600 AD as a hub of the new world, and the port city of Marseille founded in around 600 BC, as a hub of the known world. Each served as world migration destinations.

My first experience with “Charleston Rules” was in 1959. I was 18 and newly legal for buying beer in South Carolina. Having Sunday lunch at Henry’s I ordered a beer. The waiter sniffed and, looking down his nose at me, replied that it was against the law to serve beer on Sunday in South Carolina and suggested instead that I might enjoy a cocktail such as a Bloody Mary. By the way… in South Carolina in 1959 it was against the law to serve cocktails at any time. So… a tolerable law was obeyed (for beer), and an unreasonable law was ignored (for cocktails).

I remember folks saying, “Charleston is a law unto itself”. The bending of rules was winked at by most folks (including the South Carolina legislature). It was good for tourism, and for the State coffers, and the legislators enjoyed a free trade zone for bending moral rules.

Liquor by the drink was first allowed in some South Carolina bars and restaurants around 1973, but limited to “mini-bottles” until 2006. I have a vague recollection that it was first approved for areas with high tourist traffic—such as Charleston and Myrtle Beach—but I can’t find evidence to support that memory.

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Originally Posted at “Old Ones Dream” January 17, 2013 and updated here.