The practice of separate entrances for 'Men Only' and 'Ladies and Escorts' in drinking establishments was not actually meant to protect women from rowdy, drunken men. The real reason was to reduce the transmission of what by keeping prostitutes out of bars?

Venereal Disease -- In the late 1930s, the Provincial Division of Venereal Disease Control launched a major campaign against hotel beer parlours alleging that they were spreading venereal disease and that prostitution was the main source of VD. "You read these official records and it’s only women who spread disease," Campbell said with a laugh. "They never acknowledge that they got it from a man. Only women."

The campaign intensified with the Second World War during which VD was seen as undermining the war effort by infecting young men. In 1942, the provincial government ordered that beer parlours erect physical barriers between two separate areas with separate entrances designated for men only and for ladies with escorts. The latter would allow women either alone or with their husbands and boyfriends. "The whole idea was to try to separate unattached women from unattached men."

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