Lancers it was, John! Thank you for finding that. As for affordable beer.....when I transferred to a college in Virginia, I discovered the local favorite: very, very cheap horse pi$$ named "Old Export". You could get a wooden case of it for around $4 plus two dollars for the deposit on the case. Drinking age in the Norfolk area was 18 for 3.2 beer (horse pi$$ lite) and 21 for full beer. Old Export fell somewhere between the two. None of us were exactly beer snobs and the main purpose of beer was to get drunk ASAP and as cheaply as possible. Old Export did the trick. Oddly enough, it was illegal for women to sit at the bar, only at tables and booths. Which was very strange, because there was no "liquor by the drink", just beer and wine. The only way to drink liquor in an establishment was to bring your own to a "bottle club", where you could buy a membership for as little as a dollar. Your bottle was labeled and kept behind the bar, where you had the privilege of paying to access what you had already paid for. Needless to say, we poor college students didn't go to bottle clubs. When I was still at the state university back in my state, it was very "fashionable" to keep a bottle of Bacardi rum stashed in a boot in your closet in the dorm for some reason. Liquor was hard to get underage in the university town without getting caught out. My grandmother, who was a great sport, was down visiting me for "Mother's Weekend" and I sent her to a liquor store to get me a bottle. I coached her...."Ask for a small bottle of Bacardi Rum, Grandma, Bacardi Rum." She goes in the liquor store, a proper and very straight-laced-looking elderly lady and asks for "Barracuda Rum". The clerk asked her if she was sure. "Absolutely! I drink Barracuda Rum all the time", she exclaims. "Are you buying this for a student, ma'am?" asks the clerk. "Oh, no, I LOVE Barracuda Rum." she insists. So, I got my small bottle of Barracuda Rum, which I dutifully kept in my boots (except when it snowed and I had to wear them) for the rest of the year. I never drank any because I couldn't stand the taste, but you just weren't COOL if you didn't have a bottle in your room, bravely taking the chance of getting kicked out of college.
@Mary Robi Virginia has always had strange liquor laws. You can only buy it in a state store. As you said, we have no true bars...any place that sells alcohol must sell a certain amount of food. I don't remember the "women cannot sit at the bar" rule, but I do remember when you could not carry your drink with you. If you wanted to join friends at a different table, the waitress had to carry your drink for you.