In 1919, the Eighteenth Amendment outlawed alcohol throughout the country. Bootleggers nearly immediately began to supply speakeasies and other black market liquor suppliers with beer, wine, and grain alcohol. These illicit organizations were operated out of harmless storefronts like drugstores, flower shops, and meat markets, and were nearly entirely managed by the Mafia and other criminal enterprises.
In this era, organized crime and excess flourished just before the nationwide shock of the Great Depression. Read on to learn more about the historic intrigue surrounding EscapeWorks Denver’s room: Beyond the Flower Shop.
Beyond the Flower Shop
By 1926, seven years after the prohibition of alcohol, but three years before the Great Depression, more than 13,000 speakeasies (illegal drinking dens, saloons, and nightclubs) had popped up throughout the U.S. Although alcohol was illegal, with significant criminal penalties for those caught in possession of a single unauthorized bottle, some of the country’s biggest bootleggers were rubbing elbows with mayors, police chiefs, and federal judges.
Because the prohibition of alcohol only made it more popular among its users, bootleggers and organized crime leaders were raking in the dough. Meanwhile, the law enforcement officers and attorneys responsible for prosecuting these crimes were often earning a mere pittance in comparison. This dichotomy, along with the societal excesses of the Gilded Age, created an environment where law enforcement and government officials could be “bought off” relatively easily, giving a wink and a nod to illegal enterprises operating under their noses.
Many seemingly innocuous businesses were actually being transformed into saloons and nightclubs at nightfall, keeping the locals drunk and happy while the owners provided the neighborhood police officers with a discreet envelope of cash every Monday morning. For those who inadvertently got caught in the periodic conflict between mobsters and police, the fallout could be immediate and wide-ranging, making it tough to track down the responsible party.
Tips and Tricks for Escape Room Success
There are a few ways you can improve your team’s odds of escaping within the hour or even beating the record time for this escape room.
- Decide on some ground rules. These can relate to communication, organization, or strategy: for example, you may want to make a rule that any keys you find stay in the locks once you’ve found a match. This could prevent you from having to re-try the same ring of keys multiple times to find the matching one.
- Split up. Having pairs of teammates working together toward a solution generally works more seamlessly than having multiple team members floating around without any purpose or specific goal.
- Switch off. When someone has been working on the same puzzle for five or ten minutes, it can be easy to become burned out. Switching places with another team member can bring a set of fresh eyes to the problem and prevent frustration from impeding progress.
Are you ready to tackle the 1920s intrigue of Beyond the Flower Shop? Contact our team today to learn more.
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