Soft drinks tempt impetuous youths

April 6, 1920: Three boys at Polytechnic High School in Long Beach broke into a shed beneath their school’s grandstand and helped themselves to soda pop, cider and near beer left over from a weekend event. Soon, more than 100 students were drinking with them and burying what they couldn’t drink around the campus “for future reference,” The Times reported under the headline “Soda Pop Scandal Stirs Long Beach.” The Times said that scores of those involved in the scandal were “members of prominent families and many of them girls,” and that police had “a felony blanket warrant for their arrest.” The drinks, valued at $300 (more than $3,200 in today’s dollars), belonged to Robert Davis, a concessionaire at the Silver Spray pier.