<Li> United States Navy decommissioning: One possible origin is from the U.S. Navy's Allowance Type (AT) coding system used for logistics . The allowance type code is a single digit that identifies the reason that materiel is being carried in stock . Throughout the life - cycle of a warship, many pieces of equipment are upgraded or replaced, requiring onboard spare parts to be disposed of, and the code is AT - 6 for parts designated for disposal . Following World War II, there were a great number of warships being decommissioned, sold, scrapped, or deactivated and placed in reserve (commonly referred to as "mothballed"). During this process, labor workers would bring up spare parts from the storerooms and the supply clerk would tell them the AT code . Anything to be disposed of was referred to as AT - 6--which sounds like "86". </Li> <Ul> <Li> 86 Bedford Street: Author Jef Klein theorizes that the bar Chumley's at 86 Bedford Street in the West Village of Lower Manhattan was the source . Klein's 2006 book The History and Stories of the Best Bars of New York claims that the police would call Chumley's bar during prohibition before making a raid and tell the bartender to "86" his customers, meaning that they should exit out the 86 Bedford Street door, while the police would come to the Pamela Court entrance . </Li> <Li> Restaurant slang: Another notion of the term's origin claims that it came from a code supposedly used in some restaurants among restaurant workers in the 1930s, where 86 meant "we're all out of it ." Walter Winchell published examples of similar restaurant slang in his newspaper column in 1933, which he presented as part of a "glossary of soda - fountain lingo ." </Li> <Li> Documented 1944 use: According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the first verifiable use of 86 in the sense of "refuse service to" dates to a 1944 book about John Barrymore, a movie star of the 1920s famous for his acting and infamous for his drinking: "There was a bar in the Belasco building...but Barrymore was known in that cubby as an' eighty - six' . An' eighty - six', in the patois of western dispensers, means:' Don't serve him ."' </Li> </Ul> <Li> 86 Bedford Street: Author Jef Klein theorizes that the bar Chumley's at 86 Bedford Street in the West Village of Lower Manhattan was the source . Klein's 2006 book The History and Stories of the Best Bars of New York claims that the police would call Chumley's bar during prohibition before making a raid and tell the bartender to "86" his customers, meaning that they should exit out the 86 Bedford Street door, while the police would come to the Pamela Court entrance . </Li> <Li> Restaurant slang: Another notion of the term's origin claims that it came from a code supposedly used in some restaurants among restaurant workers in the 1930s, where 86 meant "we're all out of it ." Walter Winchell published examples of similar restaurant slang in his newspaper column in 1933, which he presented as part of a "glossary of soda - fountain lingo ." </Li>

Where did the phrase 86 it come from