The drinking age in Ontario was 21 until four months before my 21st
birthday. Then it dropped to 18, two weeks after my younger brother
turned 18. The drinking age in NY state was 18 and all the teens from
the Niagara Peninsula used to head "over the river" to Niagara Falls NY
and Buffalo to drink. Not only was the legal age lower, they really
didn't care and we were as young as 15.
All our old hangouts went belly up, It got even worse for the American
bars when NY raised the drinking age to 21 because the young crowd came
over here to drink. After a couple years the drinking age here was
raised to 19. We had Gr.13 in high school and they didn't want younger
students partying with those who were of age.
I saw something funny one day. My son had a friend who looked much older
than the others. I saw him coming out of the beer store one night
carrying at least six 6 packs of beer.Some were the same brand, so it
was obvious that he was buying it for his friends. We walked around the
corner and slipped and fell in the ice and there was beer spraying all
over the place.