Alcohol Sales In State's Grocery Stores

[TampaYankee]

Here Are The Rules To Buying Alcohol In Each State's Grocery Stores

The Huffington Post | By Alissa Scheller

Prohibition may have been repealed in 1933, but you'd barely know it from some of the alcohol laws still on the books in various states. The legacy of the 18th Amendment lives on in state restrictions on when and where alcohol can be sold, and the production of distilled spirits for personal consumption remains illegal by federal law(though you can make your own beer and wine, as long as you're mindful of certain bylaws). Also, the U.S. is one of the few countries that makes you wait until you're 21 to legally drink.

Without a doubt, one of the most confusing and frustrating aspects of these long-standing alcohol restrictions is trying to figure out what kind of booze you can buy in a given state's grocery stores. And then figuring out whether you can do it on Sundays.

So we decided to help you with just that. Consider this a definitive guide to buying booze at your local shop.

Blue laws, a holdover from colonial-era rules that mandated church attendance on Sundays, are laws that prohibit the sale of alcohol or other items on that day. As long as states can prove that such laws serve a secular purpose (since they can't force you to go to church anymore), courts have held that blue laws are perfectly OK. Some states also prohibit the sale of alcohol on election days.

Correction: Washington state changed its liquor laws in 2012. Grocery stores measuring at least 10,000 square feet may sell liquor. In Pennsylvania, grocery stores with established restaurant operations with separate entrances may sell alcohol by the glass for on-premises consumption and two six packs of beer to go with a restaurant liquor license.

See original article at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/08/26/here-are-all-the-states-t_n_5710135.html?utm_hp_ref=business

[Lucky]

Personally, I think alcohol should be sold by prescription only. It is such an abused drug, causing so much hardship to so many. Innocent people minding their own business often encounter drunken fools who ruin their day. At the worst case, their lives are ruined by drunk drivers who kill, then come to court so remorseful, promising to go to a "program" where they sit around with other drunks and discuss the merits of drinking. In a perfect world, there would be no alcohol.

[AdamSmith]

Personally, I think alcohol should be sold by prescription only.

Without disagreeing with any of your reasons, do you have any ideas how such an approach could be made to have a better outcome than during Prohibition?

[RA1]

TY-

There are a lot more variations than the ones mentioned in your diagrams. For instance, in Indiana, liquor, wine and beer are legal by the drink on Sundays but not by the bottle. In BOI, Boise, Idaho, I once stayed at a Holiday Inn and on Sunday morning the bar was closed but there was a washtub filled with ice and beer sitting on a table for guests to consume at their will and pleasure. Paying for it is illegal. Texas alcohol law seems to vary by as small an area as a precinct. Dry on this corner but walk across the street and it is as wet as can be. PA has state run liquor stores, FL has both state and locally owned. Of course, over the years, Kansas probably has had the weirdest laws. For a time, 3.2 beer was the only alcohol served other than at a private club. Stay at a hotel and a length of stay membership in a private club was part of the registration. Once when riding on the airlines from OKC to MCI (Oklahoma City to Kansas City) the airline stopped serving alcohol while over Kansas although they made no stops in KS. Kansas City airport being in Missouri. Obviously not legal or enforceable. SC serves drinks in a bar out of "airline size" bottles. That way the patrons know they are not getting watered down drinks and a full measure or so the law says. On and on.

Other countries besides the US certainly are not without "strangeness". The UK permits (actually encourages) dogs in the bar (pub). There they tend to serve mixers ad hoc. Order a large gin and tonic and they will serve you a large gin in a glass + a small bottle of tonic. If you keep ordering large gins eventually they will provide another bottle of tonic when necessary. You mix the drink to your specifications.

In Brunei I found it odd that the hotel bar had a sign that proclaimed, Moslems keep out. After all, Brunei is a Moslem country with 80%+ Moslems. Still I appreciated that I could go in.

I know many other oddities ( and some of them are posters herein) and I am sure other posters can tell tales also.

Best regards,

RA1

[Lucky]

Without disagreeing with any of your reasons, do you have any ideas how such an approach could be made to have a better outcome than during Prohibition?

Well, the first thing to do, as with many such things, is to educate the public to gain support for the idea. No easy task that as people seem wont to do things that are bad for them.. In the meantime, I try to avoid drunks as best as I can, but it will probably be my fate to get killed by a drunken driver that I never saw coming.

[RA1]

I, too, do my best to avoid drunks. But, I seek the company of those who enjoy a friendly libation and good conversation. There is a difference.

Best regards,

RA1

[Lucky]

I, too, do my best to avoid drunks. But, I seek the company of those who enjoy a friendly libation and good conversation. There is a difference.

Best regards,

RA1

Does that fact obliterate the fact that millions have trouble with alcohol, or that our youth seem destined to use alcohol to the point of oblivion? Been to a college fraternity party?

[AdamSmith]

Well, the first thing to do, as with many such things, is to educate the public to gain support for the idea. No easy task that as people seem wont to do things that are bad for them..

Do you think it is even a doable task?

The individual and societal costs you point out are only too real. Groups and movements such as Mothers Against Drunk Driving have made great strides in the past quarter century in public education and in strengthening of legal sanctions and their application.

But even with all that, do you foresee any way that your suggestion of prohibition-except-by-medical-prescription could actually come about in this country? And, again, operate without the ills of the Prohibition era?

[Lucky]

"Do you think it is even a doable task?"

Of course not. I am a minority opinion, and am well aware of the fact.

[RA1]

Youths do a lot of things to the point of oblivion. They generally don't seem capable of learning any other way. Of course I would prefer that everyone not make every mistake known to man personally before they learn better, if they do. But, in what I am hoping is or will remain a free society, there is a limit to what I suggest we "force" others to do.

Best regards,

RA1

[Guest CharliePS]

Personally, I think alcohol should be sold by prescription only.

What would the AMA recommend that it be prescribed for?

[TampaYankee]

TY-

There are a lot more variations than the ones mentioned in your diagrams.

You are quite right. On my first foray to Texas I traveled to Austin in '71. I was surprised to find out that I couldn't by a drink at the hotel bar unless it was a sealed bottle. (miniatures) Open drinks were illegal to serve.