I have vague memories of blue laws here in central Illinois, but I was too young to have ever been inconvenienced by them.
Oddly enough, here in Springfield you couldn’t get alcohol until after noon on Sunday until just a few years ago. Apparently no one cared that much about it until one Sunday morning an alderman was planning a day of tall cold ones on the lake and went to his favorite grocer only to be denied, at least until the clock struck 12.
At the following Tuesday’s city council meeting, a motion to appeal the ordinance was made. Debate ensued. The local townsfolk went nuts in the editorial pages. Is nothing sacred? It’s a tradition! If we don’t honor the Sabbath, chaos and moral decay will ensue! WON’T SOMEONE THINK OF THE CHILDREN!?!
Of course, cooler heads prevailed, the city council decided the old law was silly, and the mayor (a doughty Irishman who himself loved a tall cold one from time to time) approved. Now you can get your liquor on Sunday mornings here in Springfield.
The details are hazy because I was a teenager when I learned this and that was a long time ago.
There was a law way back then that limited the time a corporation could operate; the net effect was that many businesses were forced to close on Sunday. I really don’t remember the name of the corporation but in order to have access to Sunday sales, corporation A would sell its business to corporation B on Friday afternoon; this allowed B to operate on Sunday. On Monday, B would sell the business back to A and so on. I guess the extra business was worth the hassle.
This all took place in Dallas, Texas. I don’t remember if the relevant law was State, County, City or what.
Timely storyin today’s Sun-Sentinel about Fort Lauderdale’s blue law. Apparently a commissioner recently tried to order a mimosa and discovered she couldn’t, because it was Sunday before noon. And equally as apparently, the editors of the paper read the Straight Dope.
Most of the other cities around here don’t have any restriction - my local English Pub in Sunrise proudly advertises that you can watch the football matches there and drink beer on a Sunday morning.
Just curious, why do you think the editors of that paper read the Dope?
Also, I can’t understand the law. I can buy a case of liquor on Saturday night and sit at home and drink all day Sunday and skip church.
But, if I am having a family picnic on Sunday afternoon (after church, of course), I can’t buy a six pack of beer at the grocery store when buying the hot dogs and hamburgers?
Why does the mayor support only allowing restaurants and bars to sell early, but not package stores? I can’t see the logic there.
Around here, there are still some irregularities that people want to sort out.
In South Carolina, restaurants can serve beer and wine on Sundays, but you can not buy beer or wine at the grocery store on Sunday.
AFAIK, there’s no such split in North Carolina, but in either state, you can’t buy spirits on Sunday, and on other days the hours are limited as you have to go to the state-run store.
I just don’t know why people cling to such apparent irrationality today. It makes me long for California, where a person can buy a bottle of whatever they want at the grocery store at any time of day. (Not that I drink much to begin with - I’ve been living in North Carolina for over a year now, and still have not had a need to go to the ABC store.)
I agree with all your points…the law doesn’t make sense to me. I’m happy that I live in a nearby city, and not actually in Fort Lauderdale, when it comes to stuff like this.
My comment about the editors reading the Dope…well, it’s a bad joke. It was a commentary on them printing that article while this thread was going on. I guess I needed an extra or two. :smack:
Michigan just last month started allowing liquor sales before noon on Sundays. I got caught by it once or twice, brought a bottle of wine or 6-pack up to the checkout too early in the day and had to leave it behind. The continuing (and apparently baseless) argument here has been Oh Noes, DWIs and drunk driving deaths will go up. Because so many people go to bars between 7am and noon on Sunday, I guess.
Keep in mind that remaining blue laws may not be so much about “rationality” as they are about profit protection in one form or another.
I recall when most of the blue laws around here were repealed, auto dealers successfully lobbied for their industry to stay restricted. They figured that total car sales really wouldn’t increase, so staying open an extra day would merely mean additional expense.
On a related note going back to the original question, I seem to recall one chain noting that the penalty for violating the law was a substantial fine, and deciding to go ahead and take the fine for one Sunday, and advertise the heck out of the fact that they were the only ones open that Sunday. They gambled that they’d make enough to cover the fine and still make some money, not to mention the positive “stick-it-to-The-Man” vibes the stunt would create.
I think it may vary by municipality now. At the TJ’s near me (in LaGrange), I think that you can’t buy beer or wine before noon.
When I moved to Chicago in the late 1980s, I was surprised at how many people would go to the store to buy their copy of the Sunday Tribune or Sun-Times on Saturday afternoon. I’ve always suspected that it was an artifact of old blue laws which kept stores in general, or newsstands in particular, closed on Sunday. (I also always thought it highly strange to buy a newspaper for Sunday, which would have out-of-date news.)
I don’t remember any of this. I was a teen and preteen in the 70s, in Alaska. Frying pans, really? I always just assumed that stores opened later on Sundays because a lot of people were not going to shop until after church, that and that a lot of retailers were allowing their employees that time off to go to church. I had no idea that it was a law of some sort. My family didn’t drink, so that I wouldn’t have known as a kid anyway. From what I remember back when I was a young married, liquor stores opened later on Sundays, but again, I always thought it was due to the above mentioned lack of shoppers early on a Sunday morning.
In Halifax, Nova Scotia, grocery stores and others were required to close on Sundays. However, an exception was made for businesses under 6000 sqft so smaller stores like convenience stores and pizza shops could remain open. This large grocer called Pete’s Frootique exploited this loophole by registering the various sections of the grocery store as separate small businesses that leased space in the main building. The bakery was a separate company. The produce was a separate company. The deli was a separate company. Genius.
The provincial government tried to shut him down but Pete Luckett, the owner, successfully defended his technique in the courts. Shortly after such, the other national chains followed suit with a similar strategy (Sobey’s Isle 11 Ltd), which resulted in the province abandoning the restrictions as they’d become a farce.
I do feel for employees that want off work for church on the Sabbath. If I was a business owner I’d do my best to arrange the work schedule so they are off. It’s just a common courtesy.
At my job, we had a guy that was a member of the Worldwide Church of God (back when Garner Ted Armstrong still ran it). Their Sabbath was on Saturdays. My boss made sure he didn’t have to work. At the time, I thought it was a law (not to discriminate against a religion). I’m not sure. I do know the guy would have quit before working on the Sabbath. He had been raised in that church and took his responsibilities very seriously.
I’m still close friends with that guy. He mentioned years ago the church asked Garner Ted to step down. They reorganized some stuff, celebrate birthdays, Christmas, and have the Sabbath on Sunday.
OK. How do you feel about employees who want to have Saturday off, for socializing purposes? Maybe they’re friends with a group of people, the majority of whom only have Saturday off? To my mind, it’s the same thing.
Yeah, a smart business owner will try to accommodate the employee’s wishes for days off, but sometimes something’s gotta give. I don’t think that religious people should get their preferred time off if it’s a burden to the other workers.
I have to say, though, that I’ve worked various jobs where I’d volunteer to work on Sunday if I could have my Saturdays free, because I was in a gaming group that only met on Saturdays. Everyone but me worked in an office job, so we really couldn’t move the day.
Forcing people to work on the Sabbath is a tough problem for employers. That’s the main reason blue laws were created. It gave everybody the opportunity to attend Church on Sunday. Unless you happened to be Jewish and needed Sat off.
Times have changed. Businesses open on Sunday. Most people don’t mind working then. But, there are some very conservative religious people that would rather lose their jobs than work on the Sabbath. I respect their beliefs even though I’m not that conservative myself.
I’m not sure what the law and courts say these days. It may be illegal to fire someone that refuses to work on the Sabbath based on strong religious beliefs. I’m not a lawyer and don’t know.
My favorite Blue Law story took place in Indiana in…1990, I guess. I was 12 years old, and looked quite a bit older than that. I was 5’9" and had boobs and hips and everything.
My mom, stepfather and I went with my uncle to watch the Bills play the Colts–my uncle had lived in Indianapolis for a few months at the time. After the game we went to a nearby restaurant. I can’t remember the name of it, but the setup was something similar to what you’d see at an Applebee’s–a full-service restaurant with a visible bar in the middle of it. The restaurant was packed–we had to wait about 45 minutes to be seated, and we were starving.
We ordered and received appetizers and were about halfway through eating them when the manager came up to our table and asked to see my ID.
“Um…she’s 12 years old and drinking a Coke,” my parents said. “Why do you need to see her ID?”
The manager then told us that Indiana law was that no minors could be in any place that had a visible bar, even if that establishment was primarily a restaurant. They asked us to leave. Needless to say, we did not pay them for the appetizers and drinks that we’d already ordered and been served. Seriously, I was waiting for a seat for 45 minutes and seated for 30 and nobody bothered to check my ID then? And of course they didn’t have a single visible sign regarding this policy anywhere in the restaurant.
or two. :smack:
I always just assumed that stores opened later on Sundays because a lot of people were not going to shop until after church, that and that a lot of retailers were allowing their employees that time off to go to church. I had no idea that it was a law of some sort. My family didn’t drink, so that I wouldn’t have known as a kid anyway. From what I remember back when I was a young married, liquor stores opened later on Sundays, but again, I always thought it was due to the above mentioned lack of shoppers early on a Sunday morning.