LOL...........the flip side of winter's cabin fever.

Oh the bizarre liquor laws. In this state.....up until fairly recently, one had to go to a "State" store to buy ANY hard liquor by the bottle. The employees were civil servants and you bought it from the state, essentially. I don't think I ever figured out the rationale behind that one. It's still the same now in that one can only buy the hard stuff at privatised state stores and that's a hand-chosen couple of existing package stores and I don't know how who got to get that permit it was chosen. Even more recently, they've allowed Sunday liquor sales for beer at supermarkets. No wine.......but you can buy beer.

I don't even drink. Not against it, but it amounts to one or two glasses of something a year. But I do cook and I was brought up in cultures where it would be a travesty not to accompany certain meals with a good wine or hearty ale. I do buy and break out beverages for my guests if they want some.

You're not going to stop someone from getting smashed on a Sunday if they have that intention. Believe me, I've known enough alcoholics to know that they plan ahead of time so the booze will be available anytime they want it 24/7. One just buys ahead. Personally, I see no reason for any store to be open on Sunday........if for no other reason than to give people a chance to be home with their kids who are in school through the week. But, I'm not so militant I'd force that view on someone who doesn't mind working.

To me, this is right up there with the state's tobacco laws. I'm a smoker but I fully understand, and actually agree with, the new laws about exposing other people to second-hand smoke unwillingly. However, even though that was how the intent of the campaign was presented, there were no accomodations made for any establishments to be set aside for those who would like to smoke, amid other smokers with the sole intention of smoking and be well advertised to the public that if you don't want to be around it, don't come here. LOL. In that case.....the law went past the presented intention of protecting the 'innocent' and became one where it is somebody else deciding what is good or not for you and dangit I have the power to stop you and I will.

The oddest "Liquor Law" I see are "county option" states....that means that each county gets to choose, wet or dry....but that usually refers to liquor by the drink. The most confusing I ever saw was at a hotel bar where you paid $1.00 to Join the Club, then you could buy a stated amount of booze and have them sell you a set up....never did figure it out...but I could buy a drink and after all the club etc costs, it didn't cost any more than at a regular bar....so what was the point?

I love living in a state where I can buy tequila at Target on a Sunday morning! (I've never felt the need to do so, but it's nice to know I could.) I can also buy Everclear so I can make homemade bitters and limoncello.

As someone who isn't a part of that whole "religion thing," Blue Laws with Sunday prohibitions have always seemed a bit intrusive and offensive to me.

Linda.........when my husband was wrapping up on his first degree and we were just a few months short of his graduation money was tight and I took a part time job in the lounge of a nice supper club as the 'hostess' in a set-up bar. We could not sell by the drink and one had to purchase an entire bottle at the separate package store behind the bar, and bring it back into the bar and mix their own drink paying only for the set up and priveledge of drinking it on site. Yes, you are right, it was up to the county how they wanted it set up. What I noticed happening is that the consumer didn't want to take his liquor and leave because of the 'open container' issue, so that meant they wasted a heck of a lot of booze by leaving it, or consumed the entire bottle on site. Wow, yeah........they often did just that and as far as I can see it defeated any advantage a set-up situation created. It was also hypocritical because if they bought a bottle, I was the one who traipsed next door to the package store and sold it to them and then walked back and pulled up their mix or chasers. duh. My boss eventually opened up another restaurant in a near by county and this one allowed by-the-drink consumption. Crazy.

Yes, I'm sure Blue Laws reflected the social norms of the times they were instituted and many were based on the assumption they reflected right/wrong based on certain religious ethics. I guess that is where I was coming from with the smoking issue. It's a matter of groups taking on your personal decision making because 'they can' decide even if it doesn't impact them one way or another. You sort of just want to say....fine...you decide what is good and proper and abide with it, and give me the same prerogative.

Just to change the subject a little...

Back in the 1950s, there was still one state in the USA that prohibited the sale and USE if any sort of birth control. You could employ the rhythm method, but that was it. Anything else and you were breaking the law and subject to arrest.

I don't remember if it was up for vote or if the courts decided, but the entire rest of the country waited to see just how powerful one church was on the entire state.

It's really amazing that there are some that would like to see us return to those days.

Sunday Liquor sales are about the only thing left. I think we will be voting on it this fall.

Well, the thing I see is we are returning to "those" days, but insert 'special interest group' where religion once was. When it gets to the point whole cities and restaurants have to delete certain legal foods from their pantries, not by choice but mandate instead of allowing their customers to make their own decisions it smacks me a little of the same underlying principle. Uhm........let me make your decisions for you based on my choices even if I don't eat it. It's insidious and a slippery-slopey prospect. I have enough trouble minding my own business without minding everyone else's.

I used to live across the street from a real live bootlegger who tried to make her husband a less than live person. She shot him for cheating on her. Not unlike the owner of the Monteagle winery. Hm. I see a trend in Tennessee. At any rate, I didn't know it for the longest time. Strange people would show up late at night or on Sundays (when liquor stores are closed) asking strange questions! That was in Shelbyville across from the horse grounds.

Way back, when and where I went to college, birth control was illegal, as was any teaching or instruction about such things (this was pre "The Pill").
I still remember a professor in a sociology class dancing around the issue, when we all knew what he was trying to say and he knew that we knew.....etc.
That was where a liquor store was called a "Package Store" and if you were running out of vodka you ran to the corner for "A Package".
Oh and often a sign at a local joint said in flashing neon "On and off"
Such an innocent time!!LOL!
Linda c
Oy!

lindac, you seem to have a special interest in liquor. Any reason for that?

Guess I'm happy to live in a state where as soon as prohibition was over liquor stores were legal.. Being close to Kansas when I was kid I used to see the cars come from KS with a high sprung rear end and leave with it riding quite low. they sure as he!! weren't carrying passengers. Quite sure we don't have anymore problems with booze and alcoholics than where it is regulated.

I seem to have quit drinking alcohol except for the very rare glass of wine. Really didn't intend to quit, jusr did.

Waa they won't let me have any as it would mess up the medicines. May be off some or all by the end of the year but not much of a problem, never drank much any way.

Do you ever wonder how many of those antiquated laws nobody has enforced for eons are still on the books? There used to be a sign on the county courthouse about the penalties for spitting on the sidewalk. LOL. Not that I condone spitting on sidewalks, but the sign still hung even after effective antibiotics came along.

And speaking of liquor laws, when I lived in Dodge City, believe it or not, it was a dry county. Wonder where Miss Kitty went. To tip a bit, one had to belong to a private club.

I didn't know until a few years ago that I had grown up in a "dry" county. That was quite a surprise as there was a bar on just about every corner.

It seems that during Prohibition, that our little corner of the world, with all it's little rivers, the port and things like that, was ideal for smuggling in the booze for the rest of the State. So everyone just sort of ignored the situation and had free access to the good stuff.

Acutally, I was just about to comment on how antiquated all the liquor laws are. I know people like to point fingers at the bible belt, but sheesh, liquor laws everyhwere are stupid. Many states don't allow liquor on Sundays, including Minnesota, Nebraska, and Connecticut, for instance. By the way Michelle, the only state more liberal than yours is Puerto Rico. I call them a state because they should be. It's only bureaucracy that they aren't. The minimum age is still 18. I know, your minors can drink, but only supervised.

:)

A couple of my favorites (why do so many states ban liquor sales on voting day (and hurricanes? seems all the more reason to have it open, not closed?!):

Massachusetts, very conservative:
"On-premises regulations: No discounts at specific time i.e. no "Happy Hour" discounts) or for specific individuals, no fixed-price open bar or all-you-can-drink except at private functions), no more than two drinks per individual at any one time, no pitchers for fewer than two people, no drinking contests, no drinks as prizes, no free drinks. Off-premises sale of alcohol is prohibited on the last Monday in May (Memorial Day), Thanksgiving Day, Christmas Day, and the day after Christmas if Christmas falls on a Sunday. Sale of alcohol is prohibited during polling hours on election days (subject to local exceptions). 'Malt beverages" defined as having not more than 12% alcohol by weight.'"

Washington DC, very liberal:
"Liquor stores must close on Sundays (except on December 24 and 31 when those dates fall on Sunday). Grocery stores, which are allowed to sell beer and wine only, can sell alcohol on Sundays"

What? Here, the grocery stores can sell liquor on Sundays, but the liquor stores are required to be closed? That's not because of consumption. Weird!

The business of no alcohol sales during voting hours may go back to very early days - candidates would offer free beer and so on, get voters a bit, well, relaxed, and then send them off to vote for their generous drink-provider.

Banning the sale meant candidates could no longer effectively bribe the voters.

I wonder whether the liquor store exception on Sundays, in D.C. predates the grocery store permission: I imagine the liquor store owners (usually independently owned) wanted a day off. Then, later, grocery chains petitioned to be allowed to sell beer and wine (i.e. not spirits) because they were already open on Sunday anyway. The matter of Sunday sales has been recently reviewed in CT, and the independent stores were all in favour of keeping it as it is, so they got a rest - the pressure for permitting sales was all coming from big chains.

no liquor sales during a hurricane seems smart to me: reduce the risk of people out on the streets!

I was being facetious on the hurricane one.

;)

Richelieu appartments, 1969, Long Beach, Mississippi. 'Til then, hurricane parties were all the rage.....

It's so asinine that government must legislate sensibility. Make that, it's sad. Phooey.

I've never been a drinker--except for the rare Pina Colada, which, to me, tastes like a pineapple milkshake--but have always been fascinated by hearing stories that during Prohibition, my Grandmother made beer in her bathtub! Whether she really did, I don't know, but I do know that "Mamie" was a free-thinking feminist way ahead of her time. :>)

Really got in to some history about Revolutionary war times and a lot of why the colonies decided to split from the crown centered on regulations on the manufacture and sale of whiskey and the taxes involved. IOW governmental control issues. History repeats itself. ;-) Corn liquor was a major commodity in this state when it was first settled and the one item of trade we could transport down the Mississippi to New Orleans. Since it was in the days before steam engines, the crew would dismantle the boat upon arrival, sell the timber and flippin' walk back to Southern Ohio. I found this out when I was researching the life of an ancestor who ended up a riverboat pilot. My g'gramps was in his crew, and my g'g'ma was his maid and that's how they met and married.

I still have my grandmother's crock that she made wine in. For medicinal purposes, you understand. Everyone in her day, had a scuppernong grape vine and made a batch of wine each year. Delicious stuff! And I do believe it made the body feel better.

The crock would sit on her dresser in her bedroom by the hall door. That way, she could check on it's progress. You could get a whiff of it all over the back part of the house. After it was just exactly right, she would bottle it and put it on the shelf in the hall. I never saw anyone drink any, but it was always gone by the next season.

Old timey cough medicine was honey and bourbon. It worked.