Why Is San Francisco So Liberal?

It began with sailors and booze. As a former mining boomtown and a bustling port, San Francisco has always been slightly more permissive than the average American metropolis. Sailors loved to visit the city?s bars and bawdy houses in the late 1800s and early 1900s. But San Francisco?s national reputation for liberalism and libertinism really got going after Prohibition ended in 1933. California was one of the few states that did not establish an alcoholic beverage control board, which meant there was little regulation of bars and nightclubs. San Francisco, with its large population of Irish and German Catholics, tended to be?more lax about drinking than?cities farther south, where Protestants were more common?and there was?a strong, permanent military presence. The local government was also weak by comparison and largely controlled by labor unions with little interest in suppressing the burgeoning bar scene. The ?Bohemian clubs? around the city?s North Beach neighborhood became gathering places for marginalized groups?communists, anarchists, homosexuals, and African-Americans, among others?and word spread that the city was safe for freethinkers and other black sheep.

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