In April 1905, Mrs McCallum, who ran the Larkfield Bar (where the former Doonin/Olive Music Lounge now is) was ordered by a court to close her back door.
What was the reason for this? Well it was the licensing courts who asked her to close the back door of the premises, owing to the amount of traffic and liquor trade she was conducting. The Fiscal stated that it opened into Watson’s Land where people were accustomed to drinking heavily.
The police to be fair, questioned the decision on the basis that it wouldn’t matter to the residents of Watson’s Land, that they would still be able to obtain liquor at that door once the authorities had moved their attention on to other things and that liquor could be easily obtained in other nearby premises, either legally or illegally.
The Larkfield Bar is pictured in a later decade, the two storey former tenement bar which sat near the crossroads at Stonefield Crescent / Stonefield Road and Broompark Rd. The gent in the picture is a Danskin, a great uncle of mine, the photo taken in what is now the garden of the newsagents.