Quote:
Originally Posted by Icelander
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14) Come to think of it, in the 1980s, would Canadians in border towns visit the US to buy cheap booze and other stuff as they do in the modern day, due to lower sales tax and lower taxes on alcohol and cigarettes?
Or might the US citizens visit Canada for cross-border shopping in the 1980s?
What about earlier? Was there anything much cheaper in Canada (New Brunswick or Quebec) during the late 50s, the 60s and the 70s than it was in New England/Maine?
Or much cheaper in New England/Maine than it was in Canada (New Brunswick or Quebec) at some periods from 1958-1980?
I'm wondering if the PCs hear local smuggling yarns, what were/are the locals smuggling after the end of Prohibition?
Cigarettes being smuggled from the US into Canada started to become very big business after 1990, but I don't know how much, if any, there was of it before the huge hike in Canadian excise tax in the late 80s/early 90s.
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(goes and checks)
According to
this website, on November 22, 1988 the US Dollar was worth $1.19 Canadian, and the Canadian dollar was worth $0.85 US. That's a better exchange rate than we have right now, but not as good as some other times in the same era.
Legal drinking age at the time in Quebec was 18, in New Brunswick was 19, and in Maine was 21. College kids will be headed north to drink, not south.
Cross-border shopping was usually done from Canada in the US, even with the unfavourable exchange rate - the selection of goods in US stores was wider and deeper than the selection in Canadian stores.
As for smuggling, many border crossings between Canada and Maine were unpatrolled at the time; we wouldn't have Homeland Security and the Canada Border Services Agency for more than another decade, and there was a certain amount of pride in the two countries having the world's longest
undefended border. Smuggling was trivially easy, as long as you did it "retail" instead of "wholesale" - do too much, and you draw attention to yourself and both the IRS and Canada Customs and Excise take an interest. Do a little bit, and it was a game: how much can you can get away with and not draw the attention of the authorities? This doesn't apply to major border crossings, of course; those were always staffed with Customs agents on both sides of the border. (It also doesn't apply to the modern day; the borders have tightened up substantially since 9/11.)
Anything with high taxes in Canada - fuel, tobacco, and alcohol - was fair game for being smuggled from the US. A major exception to this was weapons - try smuggling those, and you
will attract attention. Going the other way, "soft" drugs such as marijuana were often smuggled south; while they were illegal on both sides of the border, the laws were less stringent in Canada so it was safer to produce them there. Again, this was risky - the "War on Drugs" had been taking place for over a decade by this point, and people caught with cannabis in the US were receiving stiff jail terms.
People might boast about bring a "40 ouncer" (a 40 oz bottle of spirits) or a "carton of smokes" across the border without declaring them, but the weapons and drug trades were kept
very quiet.