Good article at OpenFile Halifax today touching on a few points of my old home town of Halifax's drinking history. Most neato of all is the click-able photo above of the 1948 version of the Sea Horse Tavern. The name of the place has continued in the underground bar that was my home away from home in undergrad days. The article has this great description of opening day for the Sea Horse:

In September of 1948, the Sea Horse Tavern, operated by the Carleton hotel, was the first tavern to open since Halifax’s 1916 prohibition, charging 25 cents for a pint of Maritime-brewed bottled beer and 30 cents for a pint of Central Canadian beer, the maximum price set by the province. By 10:20 am, 51 people had filed in to drink. “When the fridge doors were opened, they stayed open. Trucks were backing up to get the stuff in. The beer had no time to get cool, we were dragging the crates out this side so fast,” said ‘Yank’ Landry, Sea Horse manager, to the Mail-Star.

First of a three part series, the article also mentions that the town had issued 30 tavern licenses within the first 8 months of British settlement in 1749 - when the first wave of population numbered only 2,500.