The article discusses an old advertising campaign by Canadian Club in which the company would hide cases of whiskey and provide clues for the public to find them.
I’m wondering, though, wouldn’t such an activity be illegal in many jurisdictions, presumably including the US where many cases were hidden? That is, wouldn’t it be a violation of alcohol distribution laws to leave whiskey lying around where a minor might come into possession of it? Had the whiskey been found by a child, would Canadian Club, or its advertising agency, not have been found criminally responsible for giving alcohol to a minor, or endangering the welfare of a minor, or any one of a number of other breaches of the law? Even if not, weren’t Canadian Club afraid of being sued if a child had found and drunk the whiskey, and then been injured or killed as a direct or indirect result?
I imagine the Washington DC case was typical, in that you had to speak to an adult to get the case. It wasn’t just lying around where anyone could pick it up.
Based on reading this and other threads here, and seeing a copy of one of the ads, the cases were not “hidden” in the way that, say, geocaches are hidden, but were actually behind the counter of a bar or liquor store that you had to inquire at with a code phrase.
I would be pretty confident in saying that it is probably illegal, and probably was back then, to intentionally leave booze lying around in public and then advertise for anyone and everyone to search for it, though it would probably have been thought not a big deal back then, but today, would be a nightmare and the perps would have no end of misery with multiple prosecutions under littering, alcohol control/distribution, and child welfare offenses.
from cecil’s article:
The case buried near Angel Falls, for example, was found by a young hero on his honeymoon. The little lady had the idea they were going to go to Acapulco until they boarded the plane, when she learned that in fact she’d be traipsing through the jungle being eaten by vermin. How romantic!
so some cases they were buried like a geocache, but I guess they weren’t concerned with getting sued by a child in Venezuela that accidentally found it.