By Dennis Thompsett

In the late 60s, Dave Hoath wrote a song called "The No Vote in Dry Gulch," referring to Owen Sound. The song was often performed by Dave and Barry Hilchey. At that time Owen Sound was known, and proudly, as the largest dry city in Christendom, so it was sort of a satirical protest song.

But if the Dry Gulch song worked at all, it worked very slowly. There were at least six big hotels I can think of downtown, and dozens of classy restaurants, but you could not, by law, order an alcoholic drink in any of them until 1972.

The fact is, the Canadian Women's Christian Temperance Union - that coven of iron-willed warriors for sobriety, whose rallying cry was "Lips that touch wine shall never touch mine" - actually started in Owen Sound in 1874.

They were so successful at purging the Demon Drink, that they changed the rip-roaring port town known as Corkscrew, with its Damnation Corner and Murder Alley, into Dry Gulch. A city where you could not get a drink, legally .

The city council regularly held votes to try and rectify the situation, but the temperance people would stir up the passions of teetotalers and, it was said, raid nursing homes, hospitals and old-age homes to bring supporters in wheelchairs and even on stretchers to vote no. No. A thousand times no.

And the Nos had it, right up until 1972.

Like all well-intentioned meddlers, the CWTU created enormous unintended consequences which, counter-intuitively, sparked a huge boom in the drinking trade. The whole saga provides a textbook model for how business categories begin, boom and evolve and shows how astute business people can see opportunities in nearly any kind of situation.

Although the temperance women thought no-one should ever drink, their belief was not shared by the vast majority of Owen Sounders. So alternate sources of supply sprang up in the form of bootleggers. One old Owen Sound joke is that a visitor comes to Dry Gulch and asks a local where he can find a bootlegger. The local points down the street and says: "See that yellow house sticking out a bit from the others? Well that's the only one that ain't."

My grandfather was a bootlegger for decades up on the East Hill. He didn't just slip a discreet mickey or case of beer out the back door. He had rip-roaring night club with on going card games, live music, radio shows blaring, home-cooked food and a salon for people to sit around, sip drinks and gossip. It was a party that went on for decades.

He had been injured in a sawmill accident and couldn't work. He realized that Dry Gulch offered a perfect opportunity for a fiddle-playing disabled guy to make a good living, and in fact, the Boot allowed him to provide for his family through the depression, the war and for years afterwards.

And he was certainly not the only one.

Canny businessmen looked at the success of his little place and that of others like his and took it one step further. They opened drinking establishments in all the satellite towns around Owen Sound. Bigger. Brighter. Better. And legal.

Chatsworth, Hepworth, Wiarton and Desboro all profited greatly, for decades offrom the temperance ladies' zeal.

In fact, counting the boots, there were probably more places to drink and party around Owen Sound when it was Dry Gulch than there is now that it's wetter than an otter's pocket.

When Owen Sound finally went wet in 1972, the demand was still there, but virtually all of those boots and satellite roadhouses disappeared overnight. It was just more convenient to go downtown and drink legally.

What could the satellite suppliers have done? Seen the writing on the wall and brought their unique flavour and their years of expertise into town. So we could have had pubs with cool names; Duffy's on Main. Desboro on the Bay. Chatsworth 8th and 3rd. Wiarton South.

But they chose not to. And died, like saber-tooth tigers, once their food supply was gone..

In business, evolution rewards not the strong or the fit, but rather, the most adaptable.

The lesson for budding entrepreneurs is this; an un-supplied demand should always be looked upon as an opportunity. But once that demand is supplied, the supplier offering the most convenience always wins.

So always look for un-supplied demand. Supply it more conveniently. And always answer the door to change. After all, opportunity knocks but once.