Another "crazy liquor laws in your state" thread

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
21

I don’t know if this is in the entire state of California or just the Bay Area, but I’m pretty sure you can go into any 24-hour grocery and buy beer, wine, and hard liquors at any time. (And I’m sure some of the cashiers that have rung me up when buying alcohol were under 21, so I don’t think they have a restriction on that either like they do most places.) I have to admit, I don’t think I’ve ever tried buying anything late-night or before noon on Sundays so I could be wrong. Bars of course close at 2, but some open up again as soon as 6.

Las Vegas is naturally: all booze, all the time, but I don’t know about the rest of the state.

(Oops, on preview, cher beat me by a second!)

22

All liquor stores shall be closed on Sundays.

WTF? In New York City?

I’ve lived here nearly 10 years and that one still blows me away.
[sub]oh, vB code is so fun.[/sub]

23

Nope, sorry. The greatest oddity in PA is that you need to be over 21 and have ID to buy NA beer in grocery stores. Yes sir. That’s correct, ma’am. Non-alcoholic beer. I’ve been carded at Giant, Weis’, and ShurFine, so I’m presuming that it’s part of the liquor code and not some store policy.

Of course, I’ve never been carded in a State Store. Go figure.

Zap!

24

Yup, still does. (And next time I’m in Evanston, I’m looking for that place - I want a hat!) But as of last year, we now have a state-wide open container in vehicles law. Didn’t before.

What’s strange, though, is that in spite of generally liberal liquor laws otherwise, you still can’t buy anything except from a liquor store (although the “liquor store” might just be a separate room off the main store), or, as you note, a bar with a license for carry-out sales. Heck, even in Utah you can buy 3.2 beer in the grocery store.

25

Welcome to South Carolina, home of the mini-bottle. Yup, those little airplane bottles? We have to use those to make drinks. So, if you want a B-52, that will be about $15-$18. (As a bartender, this does not really bother me, but as a paying customer, it irks me.)

No beer can be above 5% alcohol.

Happy hour can only run from 4-8p.m.

Only beer and wine/champagne sold in grocery stores. Liquor is only sold in liquor stores, or as I like to call them, the Red Dot stores. (Every liquor store I’ve seen has big red dots painted on the outside of it.)

No alcoholic beverage can be sold before 12 noon on Sunday. It used to be that no liquor could be sold on Sunday, but someone finally got that changed.

You cannot take drinks in a to-go cup. Also, beer cannot be sold to-go from a restaurant unless you have a cash-n-carry license.

There is legislation in the house right now to change the mini-bottles to free pour, but the state makes way too much money off the taxes to actually consider it.

26

IIRC, that’s only in Columbia, Myrtle Beach, Hilton Head, & Charleston. It takes a special license, and the city/county has to get X percent of its income from tourism. AFAIK, you can’t buy a beer at, say, Applebees in Greenville on a Sunday.

More acronyms, IANAL and YMMV.

27

Im in California we have a 24 hour Safeway, so you can buy it anytime. You might get followed by the cops on the way home though :slight_smile:

28

Kentucky–beer (and wine coolers, which are actually flavored malt beverages so they get classed as “beer”) can be sold at grocery stores and convenience stores; wine and liquor are sold at liquor stores or drug stores.

Each city/county has to have a time after which alcohol cannot be sold anywhere; it’s 1:00 here in Lexington, 4:00 in Louisville, 12:00 midnight down in Richmond. The only place you can get alcohol on weekends is at restaurants, but the definition of “restaurant” is so funny that a few obvious bars sneak in.

There are wet and dry counties; the county I grew up in was dry, as were most of the ones around it. A few have special privileges for restaurants or golf courses, but most are just nothing, no way, uh-uh.

Can you really not get any beer in South Carolina that is over 5% alcohol? I think that leaves out Sierra Nevada Pale Ale; it definitely gets the Bigfoot and the Celebration Ale. I may have to re-think my residency interview at MUSC.

Dr. J

29

i live in Nevada! they just give the shit away here! the only place you have to pay for it is in the whore-houses.

30

forgot to add these amusing tales:

was in the great state who’s moto is “Live Free or Die”- coundnt get a beer on sunday.

was caught drinking a beer i had in my carry-on in a South Carolina airport, security tells me i need to finish it quick or dump it (if he lets me finish it, what was the point?). i ask him why, and he says “it sunday in South Carolina”. so i asked him what day it was in the rest of the union.

did the utah thing. stopped in a dive for a beer and was told i had to be a member to come in. i told him i wasnt from around there and he says, “oh, well! i’ll give you a visitors pass!”. in i went, and drank all night.

strip club in arizona: “we don’t sell alcohol here…but you can bring your own!”. in we went, sporting cases under our arms.

was stopped walking down a street with a beer in tennessee. cop asks for ID. i give it to him and he looks at it and says in a sarcastic tone, “do walk down the street in nevada with a beer?”. “well, yeah.” (long pause) “well, finish it and throw it away!”. dude’s partner was laughing at him in the car!

see sig

31

Um…we are still talking about liquor, right? :slight_smile:

jayjay

32

Idaho:

Beer and Wine about everywhere, 6AM to 2 AM. State run liquor stores, I think 8 PM closing, but not sure. I also know of at least one Gas Station in Rathdrum that sells hard liquor as well, dunno how they get around it though.

Illinois was a shocker when I moved there (from Idaho), about dropped my grocery basket when I saw liquor in the Jewel. All I could think was “Does the state know they are doing this?”

Ok, so I was a little naive, still am :wink:

33

Huh? Where you are now, you can get beer up at the Price Chopper on Hoosick Street at any hour except between 4:00AM and noon on Sunday. I don’t know about you, but that sounds better than Vermont as far as beer goes. Sucks for hard liquor on Sundays, though.

Either state is better than Massachusetts, though.

34

Oklahoma:

Liquor, wine, and beer stronger than 3.2 is only sold in liquor stores, which can’t sell anything that doesn’t contain alcohol. No mixers, no corkscrews, no ice. Liquor stores are only open from 10am to 9pm Monday-Saturday, closed on all national holidays, and closed on election days as long as the polls are open. There’s a state ABLE (Alcoholic Beverage Laws Enforcement) Commission that regulates everything from hours of operation to in-store shelving and display placement, and they inspect often. 3.2 and NA beer is sold everywhere BUT liquor stores, bars and restaurants can only serve between 10am and 2am, bottles sold to liquor stores and restaurants have different tax stamps and rates, and you can get in big trouble if you’ve got a bottle on the premises with the wrong kind. A liquor store can also get busted for any type of “open container”, including broken bottles in the trash. And yep, we’ve got dry counties too. Until 1984 or so restaurants and “bars” couldn’t serve mixed drinks, only 3.2 beer. To get real hooch you had to go to a “private club” and buy a “membership”, at which point they’d sell you the entire bottle, keep it behind the bar with your name on it, and charge exorbitant prices for “setups”, which meant they’d bring the glasses and mixers to the table so you could make your own.

35

Let’s see:

You buy groceries at a grocery store.

You buy candy at a candy store.

You buy shoes at a shoe store.

You buy liquor at a liquor store.

What do you buy at a package store??? :wink:

With that being said, perhaps one of the weirder laws here in Colorado regarding liquor is that until recently you couldn’t call a drinking establishment a “saloon”.

Apparently some time around the turn of the century (1899 to 1900, not the more recent one) some group achieved enough power in the state legislature to pass the above-mentioned law because they felt that having the name “saloon” on drinking establishments sent the wrong message.

You could go into a bar, a pub, an inn, a lounge or any other type of joint but you couldn’t call it a “saloon”. It is interesting to note you could actually call it a “saloon” if you could prove no liquor would be sold (as in those tourist setups with gun fights and dance hall girls, but no booze).

In the 60s and 70s I remember a few bar owners trying to get around the law by putting in small print above the word Saloon on the front of their place “not really a” or “not a” or inserting a small, extra letter somewhere in the word so as not to actually be the word “saloon”. All were forced to change their names.

The only attempt at bending the law that I ever saw that was permitted was somebody wrote the name of their place as “Dead Eye’s Salon” (or some similar Western sounding name) instead of “Saloon”. They took out a lot of advertising on radio and TV calling the place “Dead Eye’s Saloon” not salon. It was taken to court, but it was pointed out by defense attorneys that only the spelling of “saloon” was outlawed not the mispronunciation of the word “salon.” They won the case.

A few years later the law was recinded. I never heard whether the “salon” reverted to being just another “saloon”.

(As a side note: I believe that to this day, about half of the native Coloradans who still live in the state cannot spell the word “saloon”)

TV

36

Texas’s liquor laws are reason number 1,345 (out of about 5,000 at last count) why I can’t wait to move out of this state. :stuck_out_tongue:

My first run-in with ‘dry’ areas was the day after I moved to Texas (unfortunately, after I’d unpacked the van, or else I might’ve turned tail and fled right then), when I tried to go to our local Winn-Dixie and get a bottle of wine for dinner. After fifteen or so minutes of fruitless searching, I decided to get help.

              *     *     *     *

Me: (to courtesy desk clerk) “Excuse me, ma’am. I’m looking for the wine. Could you tell me where it is?”

Clerk: (looks at me as if I’m something unpleasant she found stuck to her shoe) The wine? We don’t sell no wine here!

Me: (kind of wondering what the big deal is) Uh…okay…is there a store in town that does?

Clerk: (turning red in the neck and face) We don’t sell no wine or likker in this city! This here’s a Christian community and it’s dry!

(At this point, I considered pointing out that according to the Bible, not only did Jesus drink wine, but he actually turned water into wine. However, it occurred to me that (a) nobody knew I was at the store and (b) for all I knew, she had a stake and a pile of dry firewood kept in the back of the store to take care of infidels like me, so I decided discretion was the better part of valor and chickened out of the theological argument.)

Me: Dry? But I noticed that you have a whole aisle of beer and malt coolers…just asking for clarification here, I just moved here from out of state.

Clerk: (obviously confused) Well, yeah, but that’s beer, it ain’t wine or likker.
* * * *
Well, duh. Like I couldn’t get just as drunk on beer as I could on wine or liquor. :rolleyes:

However, the idiocy of the situation doesn’t end there. I’m not sure how this works statewide, but in our county, each municipality decides what they will and will not sell. In ours, you can buy a beer or malt beverage pretty much anywhere – supermarkets, 7/11, what have you, provided it’s before 1 a.m. (And that is not 3.2 beer, btw – our local 7/11 carries just about any type of beer you could want, including Sam Adams.) You can buy anything you want at a bar (and there are several in our city and in the ones surrounding it.) You can also buy wine by the glass or bottle in a restaurant, but if you want to do that, you have to pay a buck to get a membership card (the proceeds of which goes to the city coffers, of course), which you must then schlep around to any other restaurants you go to in the area and show if you want to buy wine or a mixed drink there. (You don’t have to have one if you want beer with your dinner instead of wine.) They do the membership thing at Scarborough, our local Renaissance Faire, as well, only instead of a card, they give you a sticker to wear around on your garb all day.

OTOH, if I want to get a bottle of wine to drink with dinner, or even if I just need some sherry or brandy for cooking, I have to drive to either Fort Worth or Grapevine (both about 10 minutes away). In either place, I can just go into the grocery store and get whatever I want, other than hard liquor (I still have to go to a liquor store for that.)

Now, with all this, you’d think that drunk driving wouldn’t be much of a problem, but it’s quite the opposite. They didn’t even get around to passing an open container law until a few years ago, and IMHO, the penalties for DUI amount to a slap on the wrist. With all that, I’ve come to the conclusion that they want the law on the books for form’s sake, but have no real interest in promoting responsible drinking.

Gee, once I put it all together like that, it kind of reads like that part of Pulp Fiction where John Travolta’s character explains the Amsterdam hash laws, huh? :smiley:

37

Man, Texas is messed up when it comes to al-key-hol (as my g’pa calls it)

First, you can drink it and drive, no biggie. Then you can have it, but only the passengers can drink. Then, no one in the car can drink it, and if the six pack is broken, then you could be cited for open container. To top it off, on just about every major highway there are ‘beverage barns.’ Yes, it’s a barn you drive through and have someone put al-key-hol in your vehicle. Buy a keg, buy a single, it don’t matter. But you can’t drink it on the way home.

I don’t think it’s state wide, but a lot of places have ‘memberships’ to drink. I don’t understand this, but I’m sure it has something to do with taxes. Otherwise they wouldn’t give out ‘free’ memberships. Belton Co. has a strange one. You have to have cards to drink. You have to buy this little card from somewhere if you want to drink. All places selling alcohol ask for it if you order beer or whatever. I didn’t realize it, but I met up with a friend there one day and almost didn’t have a beer. Luckily, he was from there and had his card. Whew.

Liquor stores have very strange hours, and these are the only places to buy anything other than wine or beer. Wine and beer can be bought just about anywhere, but only from 7a to midnight M-Th, 7a-1a fri and sat, and noon-midnight on sunday. Liquor stores are closed on New Year’s Eve, I found out this past year. Yep, not even for an hour. Liquor stores close generally at 9p except for the one by BAYLOR, a PRIVATE, CHRISTAN university. It’s open till 9:30, so all the heathens can buy al-key-hol. But it’s called a bar supply, so all the bars can supply themselves by buying retail. Riiiiight.

I miss Florida. Granted, you couldn’t just walk down the street with it, but if the store was open, you could buy it. That was great. Most liquor stores were open at least till midnight. Some weren’t open very late, but on base, the 24 hr shopette sold liquor and you could buy it there, provided you were at least 21.

Washington state is weird, kinda like Idaho. I don’t know when you could buy beer, but liquor was only at the State run shops. It was really weird for me.

38

IN MELBOURNE

If I serve an adult that is buying alcohol for a minor, then I supposed to KNOW that he is doing that, and NOT serve him, otherwise I am to blame.

HOW THE F**K AM I SUPPOSED TO KNOW IF SOMEONE IS BUYING FOR SOMEONE ELSE UNDERAGE???

39

I don’t drink, so I don’t pay much attention to the laws. But I do know that Lynchburg, Tennessee, home of the Jack Daniels Distillery, is dry. No drink allowed in the county at all.

StG

40

Well, in Glasgow one may not drink alcohol outside. The law, which has been in place for a couple of years, isn’t really designed so that eagle-eyed cops can swoop down on couples havign a bottle of wine with their picnic (we do have them despite the rain) - it’s more to provide an excuse to bust small groups of youths hanging around underpasses with bottles of Buckfast, or ludicrously drunk winos wandering in and out of shops drinking from paper bags. I’ve never seen it enforced, but I’m sure it would be if I decided to test the water.

However it’s more or less legal to get wildly drunk and then go outside. It was just the image of the self-propelled drinking party that was starting to impinge on Glasgow’s fancy-shamncy new image.