This Week in History: 1962: Vancouverites vote for Sunday movies and concerts
Credit to Author: John Mackie| Date: Sat, 14 Dec 2019 00:00:36 +0000
For much of the 20th century, Vancouverites couldn’t go see a movie, concert or play on Sunday.
That changed on Dec. 12, 1962, when citizens voted 67,996 to 35,565 to allow Sunday entertainment.
“The plebiscite to legalize Sunday afternoon movies and concerts won assent in every one of the city’s 97 polls — by majorities that ranged as high as five to one,” said The Sun’s Cliff McKay.
The ban on Sunday entertainment dated to March 1, 1907, when the federal government brought in the Lord’s Day Act. It prohibited commercial activity on Sunday, and was enthusiastically supported by the clergy.
“It means that, at a period in history when in all lands there is a disposition to arrest the mad rush of modern life in the interests of the high concerns of humanity, Canada has had citizens who knew when ‘to take occasion by the hand’ and lead the world in sane and progressive legislation on the subject,” wrote the Rev. R.C. MacBeth in the March 9, 1907 Vancouver World.
“That the rest day is needed all human experience and all science amply demonstrate. It was never so much needed as today. If men were driving their cattle at the rate of two miles an hour in the old wilderness days needed the rest day, much more does the man who has to drive his locomotive at sixty miles an hour under a tremendous physical and mental strain.”
There was disagreement over whether the federal government had jurisdiction over some parts of the Lord’s Day Act, so the provinces enacted their own versions of the Sunday legislation, which were popularly known as the blue laws.
But as the decades went by, people started to chafe under the restrictions. On May 28, 1958, Vancouver councillor Evelyn Caldwell declared the Sunday blue laws should be “relegated to the museum where they belong.”
The Vancouver Mounties baseball team forced the Sunday sports issue by scheduling three Sunday games in 1957. This is the 1958 Mounties on April 25, 1958. Left to right: Gord Sundin, Bill Hain, Russ Heman, Barry Shetrone, Mel Held, Erv Palica, Charlie White, Joe Durham, Owen Friend, Dave Jordan (since assigned), Jim Brideweser, Joe Frazier, Jerry Lane, Joe Hatten, Ron Moeller, Art Ceccarelli, Bill Lajoie, George Bamberger, Tommy Hatton, Ray Barker, Buddy Peterson and playing-coach Spider Jorgensen. Charlie Warner/Vancouver Sun
The Vancouver Mounties baseball team was trying to press the Sunday issue at the time by scheduling three Sunday games. Vancouver voters had approved Sunday sports in a plebiscite on Dec. 11, 1957, but the provincial government had to make an amendment to the Vancouver Charter for Sunday sports to go ahead.
The province complied, but it was appealed by the Lord’s Day Act Alliance. Caldwell proposed a motion calling for the city prosecutor to ask provincial attorney-general Robert Bonner for an order to prosecute the Mounties for playing on Sunday.
Caldwell hoped this would get the “attorney-general (to) come out into the open” on the blue laws issue. But council tabled her motion, because the question was still before the B.C. Court of Appeal.
Still, councillor Reg Atherton agreed with Caldwell that the blue laws were of another era.
“These laws are very antiquated,” Atherton said. “They deal with bull-baiting and other long-gone activities. They prohibit groups of more than three people from gathering on a sidewalk.”
On June 13, 1958, the B.C. Court of Appeal voted 3-2 that the province was within its right to grant an amendment to the Vancouver charter “to allow paid-admission sports between 2:30 and 6 p.m. on Sundays.” The Lord’s Day Act Alliance took it to the Supreme Court, but they lost there as well.
With Sunday sports now legal, people started advocating for Sunday entertainment.
Promoter Hugh Pickett had already shown the absurdity of the Sunday ban by promoting a show by Anton Dolin’s ballet company in the early 1950s. Dolin was only available on a Sunday, so Pickett booked him just after midnight Monday morning to get around the Sunday issue.
It sold out, but when the audience spilled onto the sidewalk at 3 a.m. it found the streetcars weren’t running. So they went back inside and the performers entertained them until the streetcars started up at 5 a.m.
The 1962 legalization of Sunday movies still didn’t mean everything was wide open on the Sabbath. Sunday shopping was prohibited under the provincial Holiday Shopping Act until merchants in Gastown and on Granville Island chose to ignore it in 1981. Widespread Sunday shopping still didn’t catch on until 1985.
You also couldn’t buy alcohol in a bar or pub on Sunday until the regulations were relaxed in 1986.
The wording of Vancouver’s plebiscite on Sunday movies and concerts on Dec. 12, 1962. Voters approved Sunday movies by a two to one margin.
The front page of teh Vancouver Sun Dec. 13, 1962 with results of a plebiscite that approved Sunday movies and concerts in Vancouver.
The front page of the Vancouver Sun Dec. 13, 1962 with results of a plebiscite that approved Sunday movies and concerts in Vancouver.
Sports people react to Sunday sports being allowed in Vancouver on June 13, 1958.
The Blue Laws became a big issue in the 1950s, promting the Vancouver Sun to run the law in a story on June 8, 1957.
Vancouver Sun story on the provincial blue laws on May 28, 1958.
Vancouver World story on the Lord’s Day Act by Rev. R.G. McBeth on March 9, 1907.
https://vancouversun.com/feed/