Hello, and welcome to another episode of No Such Thing as a Fish,
a weekly podcast coming to you from four undisclosed locations in the UK.
My name is Dan Schreiber, I am sitting here with James Harkin, Andrew Hunter Murray, Anna Tuchinsky, and once again,
we have gathered round the microphones with our four favourite facts from the last seven days,
and in no particular order, here we go, starting with you, Andy.
My fact is that, along with their drink, New Yorkers in bars used to be served a sandwich full of rubber.
What?
Yummy.
What?
Yum, yum, yum.
Why on earth would that be?
Well, this is a sort of legal loophole that bars had to jump through in order to serve their customers.
So, it's all to do with something called the Reigns Law, basically.
People were trying to curb public drunkenness in the 1890s in America, and in particular in New York,
and this politician called John Reigns got this law passed, which was designed to put nasty bars out of business.
So, there were various, you know, the cost of a liquor license tripled,
and you had to keep your curtains open on a Sunday so that police officers could host all sorts of things.
The law was partly designed to shut down Sunday drinking, and that was very annoying for people and for bars,
because it was the most profitable day of the week, and it was most people's only day off.
But there was a loophole in the law where, if you were serving a meal,