I’m currently in MA, where the law is that you can’t sell alcohol in a store past 10PM (maybe 11PM) on a Saturday night, and for all day Sunday… EXCEPT for the few weeks before Christmas. That’s right, for some reason, the Blue Laws get repealed for the couple of weeks prior to Christmas, and stores are allowed to sell alcohol on Sundays. Go figure.
We have the same kind of law in Ontario, Canada, and it used to come into play a lot when I worked in a beer store. But that was one of the reasons all the stores in our chain had big windows at the front–so you could see the kids going up to the adults in the parking lot.
Even if they went around the corner to do their transaction, you could still tell if the adult was buying for the kids–the adults didn’t generally drink certain brands, so if an adult came in for (say) all-natural, no preservatives, imported hops beer, and also wanted a case of extra-strong commercial swill that was popular with underage kids, we’d usually ask if they were buying it for the kids in the parking lot.
I agree that it is sometimes difficult to know, though. Still, if the kids ended up with beer, we would be somehow to blame.
Anyway. I used to think Ontario was pretty repressive when it came to alcohol, but after reading some of the posts, I guess we’re not too bad.
Spirits are unavailable in any kind of retail establishment other than provincially-run stores. Wines and beer are sold in those too, but there are also Beer Stores (my ex-employer!), and stores that sell Ontario wine. The beer and wine stores take advantage of the part of our liquor law that says breweries and wineries can run their own chain of stores if they wish. The wine stores generally only sell the products of one winery, but the Beer Stores represent a group of breweries, so they can sell all kinds of beer. And within the last ten years, they have been able to sell imports too.
But no beer, wine, or spirits in supermarkets, drug stores, corner stores, or anywhere else.
Still, to give the government credit, they are trying to make the buying process more consumer-friendly. Store hours have been extended, Sunday sales are allowed, and the provincially-run liquor stores are full of ideas for entertaining (trained wine consultants, drink recipe books, and so on). These are all free for the asking. And if you accidentally break a bottle before it is opened–either broken by accident in the store or even after you get it home–just show them the sealed cap and you don’t have to pay for it (if in the store) or they will replace it at no charge (after you get it home).
Most bars are fully licensed, though a few opt for beer and wine licenses only. Either way, bar hours are from (I think) 11:30 in the morning until 2:00 a.m. We don’t really make a distinction between bars and restaurants as far as licensing hours go; those hours would apply to both.
Recalling the post above about Colorado and saloons–interestingly, until sometime in the 1980s (again, I think), we couldn’t call a drinking establishment a “bar.” The term we mostly used was “tavern.” But everybody knew what it meant, so if you saw a place called “The Jolly Miller Tavern,” you knew you could get a drink there, but not necessarily a meal.
Other than that, no open containers in cars, no drinking in public (the park, the sidewalk, etc.). But the drinking age is 19, so even if our laws seem a little repressive, at least we get used to them early.
For the record, we have Sierra Nevada Pale Ale on tap at my restaurant. So, I guess it’s only got 5% alcohol.
Also, there are several counties in SC that are dry, or that follow the old blue laws. Charleston repealed the Sunday liquor license laws back in 1990, 1991(?) I think. (In any case, I think it was before I could drink.)
Some stores still do not sell beer on Sundays, as it requires a Sunday beer license. Usually these stores put a big “NO BEER SALES” sign up on Sundays, so it’s easy to tell them apart.
Most of SC’s crazy alcohol laws have been mentioned already, though I’m surprised there haven’t been more questions and confusion about our stupid mini-bottles. But I just wanted to emphasize the strangeness of our liquor stores not having names–many of them just have three big red dots on the side of the building or above the door, no words or anything. (SC pawnshops are similar, having a scale with balls picture)
NC is not much better if you’re a visitor looking for a liquor store, until someone tells you that they are all named “ABC” [alcohol beverage control].
I miss the character and idiosyncrasies of other states’ liquor stores, which can be called and can look like whatever the hell they want.
Alright, I’ll admit to being confused about this. In bars you can only have the little plastic bottles preferred by airlines and the homeless people near where I used to work in downtown Detroit? What’s the motivation for such a thing (other than bluenose Christian repression of some sort, of course)?
Is this anywhere, or only in bars? I can’t imagine going to a liqour store and buying fifty one-ounce plastic bottles of Captain Morgans.
Is this so illiterate southern alcoholics can figure out where to get their liquor?
My understanding of the mini-bottle requirement is that it was originally done to prevent customers from being under-served.
Yeah! I always wondered about that one. When I reached my age of majority in Utah, it was still a mini-bottle state. But I noticed that a mini held considerably more than a standard shot - a good shot-and-a-half or more, IIRC (it was a long time ago.) So if the objective was to discourage alcohol consumption, forcing people to make mixed drinks with mini-bottles seemed to be counterproductive.
Nowadays, drinks are made in Utah using precisely-metered standard shots. 
A mini-bottle contains 1.5 ounces of liquor. No matter how fancy the bottle. (Some people collect them, because some are rather cool looking.)
There are two reasons why SC uses mini-bottles. One, to ensure the amount of alcohol served in a drink. (No extra jiggers for good tippers!) The other reason is tax. There is a higher tax on a sleeve of 10 mini-bottles than there is on your average bottle of liquor. (They tax each mini-bottle.)
People have been rallying around changing to free-pour for years, but as long as The Man keeps making more money off the mini-bottles, I don’t see it happening.
PA…Philly area.
I don’t know about the rest of the state, but there are certain liquers you can’t buy, such as grain alchohol type drinks(Everclear).
I never understood the reason bars are closed on Election day. Though restaurant/bars get around this silly law.
You can buy up to 2 sixpacks at a take-out place (bar, pizza shop, restaurant), Cases of beer from a beer distrubutor (but not sixpacks), and liquor from a State store. All this crap just to get a drink, but I can walk around the corner and score pot with the greatest of ease. Hmmmm…
We usually head down to Deleware or Maryland and buy in bulk. Deleware has no sales tax and for some reason MD’s alchohol is considerably cheaper than PA’s.
There are some glaring double standards when you go from town to town in my area. If you were to walk around with an open container in my town, you would be arrested on the spot. Yet in Mannyunk, the night before an anual bike race, they let everyone hop from bar to bar in a drunken mob. Don’t get me wrong, I am part of that mob every year, but sometimes you wish this stupid Puritan attitude would go away so we could have that drunken mob in other towns.
(did that make sense?)
Anyway, I’ld rather be in Kentucky. We used to scrounge for change and buy a 3 dollar sixpack of Keystone at the Dairy Mart. Now that was both cheap and convenient.
I grew up in California, so I didn’t know anything about other states’ liquor laws until 1965, when we went back to Indiana for a visit. We stopped once in Kansas, which had only repealed its prohibition laws in 1948: Stores that sell liquor in Kansas may not sell anything else, and may not be marked as any kind of store.
When I returned to Indiana in 1998, I found that convenience stores may not sell alcoholic beverages; the stores that do sell them also sell munchies (presumably to make you thirsty for beer) but no other goods.
Mad Magazine founder Bill Gaines, a World War II veteran, was a member of the American Legion–as well as, oddly enough, of the ACLU. He joined the Legion only because he had relatives in Pennsylvania whom he visited on Sunday; the Legion post was the only place in the vicinity where he could get beer on Sunday in PA.
These stories from the “home of the free” are astounding. The Australian liquour laws are much more relaxed in comparison. There used to be some restrictions similar to these (all pubs used to have to close at 6pm - a WWII restriction supposedly meant to keep factory workers on the ball, that was retained for many years after the war).
We also had some laws designed to restrict competition against the incumbent liquour outlets: Until a few years ago an applicant for a liquour licence in Melbourne had to prove that there would be sufficient demand. The people who got to decide whether there was sufficient demand were the existing licence holders - not surprisingly they often decided that they didn’t need any new competitors.
The most liberal laws I’ve come across in Australia were in Canberra (where I lived for a number of years) where just about any business could get a liquour licence. The most interesting example was in Braddon where the petrol station also had a liquour licence for those who wanted to get their drink driving worked out in one place.
I lived for a brief stint in northern Western Australia last year. You could only buy take-away booze from 12.00pm until 6.00pm Mon to Sat. No booze on a Sunday. No bulk buying…only 3 bottles of wine, one slab, or one bottle of spirits. No boxes of vino ever.
I had to seriously fix my schedule to get to the bottlo every day…and then to go visit the three other outlets to get my libation. Bloody rules and regs suck. 
So you had 3 bottles of wine and/or a bottle of spirits every day? That’s impressive 
NC sells liquor in state run stores and 21 is the age to buy. Beer and wine are sold all over. If you are 17-20 you cannot go into liquor store even with parents. Under 17 and 21 and older you can go in. I assume this is because 17-20 might try to use a fake ID.
I can buy little candy liquor bottles with real liquor in them at the grocery store. That’s not allowed in states even where they can sell beer and wine at the grocery. But I suppose where you can buy liquor at the grocery store you could get them. But no beer or liquor sales at the grocery here, although a mile away in MA they have beer and wine at the grocery.
How many decades ago? MA still has restrictions but we haven’t as long as I’ve been old enough to buy beer. MA has made progress, though: it wasn’t so very long ago that all stores were closed on Sundays, except flea markets for some reason.
Well, longer than this thread has been around. Fuck, I hate this new format that notifys you when someone responds to a 20 year old post. I can’t remember what the fuck I posted last night.
Wisconsin state law allows for beer sales from 6am to Midnight. But there is no preemption law. Which means there are municipalities that cut off sales at 9pm. This, of course, is done under the lie of fighting drunk driving but is not surprisingly pushed upon city and town boards by the Tavern League who wants you drinking in a bar, not at home.
What the elected idiots don’t seem to realize is that if someone really wants more beer and it’s after 9, they are going to jump in their car and drive just a couple miles into a jurisdiction that adheres to state law. And if that person had been already drinking your stupid ordinance just put a drunk driver on the road rather than letting him walk (or at least drive a shorter distance) to his local liquor or convenience store. I was a compliance investigator during my first career and I worked hard with state legislators to try to get a state wide mandatory time like we got with bar closing time. But the Tavern League has it’s claws in deep on both sides of the aisle.
Thanks to the feds Wisconsin’s drinking age is 21 rather than 18 like it used to and should be. But the legal age to be a bartender is 18. You can serve other people booze you’re not trusted to drink yourself. What a crock of horseshit!
You didn’t mention what I consider to be the craziest law. If you purchase more than 8 liters of liquor you have to have a transportation permit allowing you to bring it home. The transportation permit:
A purchase may be made only from the store or distillery named on the permit. One copy of the permit shall be kept by the issuing person, one by the purchaser, and one by the store or distillery from which the purchase is made. The purchaser shall display his copy of the permit to any law-enforcement officer upon request. A permit for the purchase and transportation of spirituous liquor may be issued only by an authorized agent of the local board for the jurisdiction in which the purchase will be made, or in accordance of 18B-403(b)(5).
So if you’re buying more than four “handles” (1.75 liter bottles) you’ve got to fill out this document attesting where you’re going with the liquor and when you expect to arrive, and it better be before 9:30 at night, because the permit’s only good until 9:30 pm on the day issued.
Washington changed from state run liquor stores to private sales in 2011. The rules are a bit strange, only larger retailers can sell liquor except for some rare circumstances. There are liquor only stores but they have to meet a square footage requirement. Alcohol sales are allowed 22 hours a day, none are allowed from 2 am to 4 am. We also get taxed twice on liquor, a sales tax of 20.5% and a liter tax of of $3.7708 per liter. This gives Washington the pleasure of having the highest liquor tax in the US and that is by a wide margin. We pay over $32 a gallon in liquor taxes, Oregon is #2 at $21 a gallon.