Liquor License: An Ethnography of Bar Behavior PDF
Preview Liquor License: An Ethnography of Bar Behavior
LIQUOR LICENSE ,~i~~!~!!~~~ .. Northwestern University LIQUOR LICENSE ••••••••••••••••••• ,-- ,-- ,-- ,-- r- r- r- ,-- ,-- ,-- ,-- ,-- ,-- r- ,-- ,-- ,-- ,-- ,-- An Ethnographyo f Bar Behavior SHERRI CAVAN BY ~ lllliiiaalll ALDINE Publishing Company / Chicago Copyright © 1966 by Sherri Cavan All rights reserved First published 1966 by Aldine Publishing Company 320 West Adams Street Chicago, Illinois 60606 Library of Congress Catalog Card Number 66-15199 Designed by· David Miller Printed in the United States of America -------------~----- ,- ,-- ,-- ,-- ,- ,-- ,-- ,-- ,-- ,-- ,-- ,- ,-- ,-- ,-- ,-- ,-- ,-- ,- Let there be ever so great a plenty of good things, ever so much grandeur, ever so much elegance, ever so much desire that every guest should be easy,· in the nature of things it cannot be. There must always be some degree of care and anxiety. The master of the house is anxious to be agreeable to him, and no one but a very impudent boy can as freely command what is in another man's house as if it were his own. Whereas at a tavern there is a general freedom from anxiety. You are sure you are welcome and the more noise you make, the more trouble you give, the more good things you call for, the welcomer you are. No servants will attend you with the alacrity which waiters do who are incited by the prospect of an immediate reward in proportion as they please. No sir; there is nothing which has yet been contrived by man by which so much happiness is produced as by a good taverr or inn. SAMUEL JOHNSON V ------------------- ,- ,- ,- r- ,- r-- ,-- ,- ,- ,- ,-- r- ,-- ,- ,- ,- r- ,-- ,- Acknowledgments The extent to which I am indebted to Erving Goffman is only partially footnoted in the text. In addition to his published works, his suggestions, criticisms, and assistance as my disserta tion advisor throughout the course of the study have been in valuable. Appreciation is also due Harold Wilensky and Andie Knutson, who served as members of my dissertation committee. Suggestions, advice, criticism, and assistance have come from many quarters. I should particularly like to thank the Scientific Advisory Council of Licensed Beverage Industries, Inc., for the grant that supported the collection of much of the data. To my past associates at the Behavioral Science Project of the School of Public Health, University of California at Berkeley, particularly to Joan P. Emerson, Octavio Romano, and Steven Polgar, I am grateful for many hours of informative discussion and advice. To Christine Peterson, who typed numer ous drafts, a special word of thanks is due, as it is to Paula Philbrick and Jo Pearson for a variety of forms of administra tive assistance. A word of appreciation is also owed to Don C. Gibbons for the final preparation of the map. I am grateful as well to Pat Thalheimer and Martin Hoff man, who helped with various phases of the field work, and especially to my husband, Phillip Cavan, for things which are publicly acknowledgeable (such as assistance, suggestions, criti cisms, editing, and encouragement) as well as for things which are not. vii -------------~~~~-- ,-- r- r- r- r- r- r- r- r- r- r- r- r- r- r- r- r- r- r- Contents Part One: IN T Ro Du c T I o N 1. Behavior Settings 3 2. The Public Drinking Place: An Overview 23 Part Two: s TA N D I N G p A T T E R N s OF BEHAVIOR 3. Bar Sociability 49 4. Permissible Behavior and Normal Trouble 67 5. Space and Spatial Proprieties 8 8 6. Rituals and Ceremonies 112 Part Three: VA RI AT I O N S I N U S E 7. The Convenience Bar 143 8. The Nightspot 154 9. The Marketplace Bar 171 10. The Home Territory Bar 205 11. Conclusion 234 Index 242 ix ...................................... PART ONE r- r-- r-- ,-- ,-- .- ,-- ,-- r- r-- ,-- r-- ,-- r-- r-- r- r-- r-- r-- Introduction ·············~····· r- r- r- r- r- r- r-- r- ,-- ,-- r- r- r- r- ,-- r- ,-- r- ,- 1 Behavior Settings For the actor involved in the round of daily life, the social world is differentiated into configurations of time, space, and objects called churches, factories, restaurants, homes, parks, courts, doctors' offices, and the like. Associated with these configura tions, or conventional settings, is a standing pattern of behavior, routinely expected within the setting, treated as fitting and proper for the time and place, and persistently independent of the changing populace.1 These standing behavior patterns associated with the con ventional settings of everyday life are the taken-for-granted, common-sense features of social organization. 2 They define for the actor what activity can take place as a matter of course and without question, and for what conduct those present will be held accountable. They may further delimit who is or is not eli_giblet o enter a given setting, the ways the routine tasks are to be distributed, the varieties of reputations that can be accorded to those enter ing, the kinds of fates that can be allotted to those present, and the like. Thus for the actor involved in the round of daily life, these taken-for-granted, common-sense features of social or ganization are a matter of practical interest. Whatever his goals 1. Roger Barker and Herbert Wright, Midwest and Its Children (Evanston, Ill.: Row, Peterson), pp. 7, 45-83. 2. Alfred Schutz, Collected Papers, I (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1962), p. 7. 3
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