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The Gothenburg Experiment
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In the early 19th century Sweden was awash with legally produced home made brandy. There were 170,000 licensed stills in a country with a population of under 3 million. every householder had an absolute right to distill their own spirits.
The annual consumption of spirits per head of population was 7.5 gallons and drunkenness was a national scandal.
In 1855 a law was passed making domestic distilling illegal and local authorities were given powers to grant licences.
The City of Gothenburg pioneered a new system which was to provide the model for municipal authorities throughout Sweden and Norway.
All the retail spirit licences in Gothenburg were awarded to one company, a trust, which was to run pubs, off licences and restaurants in a manner that would not encourage excessive spirit drinking. The premises were to be clean but not attractive, the employees would have no interest in pushing sales to make a profit and the holders of shares in the company were limited to a 5% annual return on their money. All profits above that were to go to the town treasury to benefit the local community through the provision of parks, libraries, museums etc.
Despite the fact that beer and wine sales were excluded from the system it was extremely profitable and yielded thousands of pounds a year to the city of Gothenburg.
The idea caught on rapidly in Sweden and each municipality adapted the system to suit their own purposes.
The fame of the system spread rapidly and the idea was taken up by public house reformers and temperance campaigners in Britain and Scotland in particular. Around the turn of the century public house trusts were set up in such places as Peebles, Leven, Clydebank, Broxburn and Tranent but the idea of controlling public houses and spending the profits of the community caught on most dramatically with the coal companies of Central Scotland.
