So… being the season to be Jolly we have been buying spirits of comfort and joy lately. This has re-awakened our awe at the numerous and disparate laws in the state in which we live. In the little town we live in, <30,000 folks, if the checker is less than legal age we have to hold the offending object as it goes over the boop boop machine. In the next town over, county seat, and still with <30,000 residents, if the checker is under the legal age, said checker has to call an older person over, sign out of the register, older person has to sign into the register, run the bottle of spirits over the boop boop device, sign out of the register, under legal age checker then signs back in and the transaction is legal YEAH!! I could have drunk the offending beverage by then.
MrSin was working several hours away from our little idealized homefront and was carded while buying a bottle of wine last week. MrSin is just shy of his 55th birthday, and while he looks pretty good to me he doesn’t look close to being under 21.
Finally at Ohare airport on the northern reaches of my home state, my Mom, who is 78 and looks every day of it, is carded because of their NO TOLERANCE policy.
What is wrong with this picture. Or is it just me.
The laws I can never get used to are the ones establishing State Liquor stores. Whenever I run across these in my travels it boggles my mind how people would stand for such a thing. Of course, I come from California, where you can by hard liquor at gas stations.
Both Oregon and Washington have state stores, only beer and wine can be sold in the private sector. It’s a big ripoff for taxpayers. Most of the personnel working in these stores are civil service employees w/ all the benefits. Liquor prices are about double compared to California.
We still have dry counties scattered randomly across the state. In some of these counties, you can be fined for “possession of alcohol”, even though same was lawfully purchased elsewhere. I suspect I could beat that rap on appeal, but never had a client with a need to test my theory.
We also have wet counties that won’t sell alcohol on Sunday, and may have a county or two that allow beer but not liquor.
We have liquor stores here, and it always amuses me when we go on vacation and hit the grocery store or the 7-11 and I see beer and wine. I always do a double-take and think, “Wow, beer in the grocery store! What a concept!”
Whatever - you get used to it, I guess. They’re all closed on Sundays, too, so you have to either plan ahead and shop early or find a bar that sells ‘package goods,’ a euphamism for a tiny little liquor store on the side of the bar.
We have state-run Wine & Spirits Shoppes in PA :mad: . They’re the only place to buy hard liquor (even bars must buy from them) and wine (other than an actual winery-run store). Buying beer is even more confusing. You can get six-packs to go at bars, resturants, and even a few delis, but you can only get 2 at a time. They’s actually make you carry it outside (you can have a friend standing outside the door) and come back inside :smack: . Or you can go to a “beer distributer” and get it by the case or keg. Drive-thru beer distributers exist . You only need to by 18 to serve or sell alcohol (indeed you can even be issued a liquor licence in you own name at 18 ). If that not confusing enough once in a blue moon a supermarket will teem up with a local winery and ger a special occasion permit to hold a wine tasting/sale in the store. The Liquor Control Board has recently begun renting space inside supermarkets and setting up One Stop Shops as an experiment. As for trading hours; bars must close by 2:00am but can reopen at 7:00am. The state stores can open between 11:00am and 9:00pm Mon-Sat, but often close earlier. Only 10% of stores can open on Sunday and then only noon-5pm.
Unpopular though this sentiment may be, I think that all alcohol should be available only at liquor stores. Not Pennsylvania-style package stores where you can’t look at the products, but dedicated stores with good security, adults at the register, and a good selection.
My community is the central liquor storage and distribution centre for this territory. However, I cannot buy liquor here.
If I want to purchase alcohol, I must place a prepaid order and have it delivered from Iqaluit (about 1000 km away). I am on the hook for airfare to ship it here and it takes from 3-5 days to arrive. There are layers upon layers of rules and regulations.
There is one bar (Royal Canadian Legion) that is open every other Friday evening - usually - if staff is available to work. I can buy $8 cans of beer when it is open. The hotel can sell drinks only to registered guests who reside out of town.
The long and the short of it is that alcohol has the potential to be very damaging to the social and economic fabric of Nunavut. The bureaucracy intentionally makes alcohol very difficult and expensive to obtain, but not impossible. There isn’t too much complaining about it either.
Details of the liquor distribution system are outlined here.
Here’s something crazy: I spent the past year in Ireland and Britain, where I’m two or four years over the drinking age, depending on the situation. And yes, I did occasionally get carded, and I’m still young enough that it bothers me. But, apparently, something magically happened on the plane back to the US, where, even though someone four years younger than myself can have a beer when out to dinner in Britain, I can’t do so in America.
Just out of curiousity, could you give me your reasons for thinking this is better than, say, allowing grocery stores to sell beer, wine and/or alcohol.
Wow, and I just thought it was crazy that I had to touch the wine bottle as the underage clerk passed it over the boop machine. No more complaints from sinjin who lives in a state where you can buy all legal beverages at the gas station. :smack:
Nothing over 3.2% sold on Sundays, only 3.2 available in grocery or convenience stores, bars stop serving at 2AM and stores stop selling at midnight, except for Sunday when it’s 10PM.
I’m sure there are more, but I don’t drink enough to know them.
A few years ago, when my son was 4 or 5, he used to always go with me to the grocery store. I would always pay with my ATM card, and he always wanted to “push the green button” to complete the transaction. One day, as he is about to do so, the checker tells me that he can’t push the button, because I have a six pack of beer, and my son, being under-age, cannot take part in the transaction.
Here in New Mexico, if alcohol is part of your total purchase, the checker has to be 21, period. An underage checker cannot just call someone over to ring up the offending liquid; the ENTIRE PURCHASE must be rung up by someone 21 or over.
And here’s not so much a run-down of the kinds of liquor laws that may impact the average person’s life, but one that the average person may not be aware of…
Those who are in the business of dispensing alcohol, serving alcohol, or ringing up purchases that include alcohol, and even security personnel who are frequently contracted to oversee bars must be certified to do so; this means owners, servers, bartenders, grocery store checkers, convenience-store clerks and the security guards I mentioned. Every five years (soon to be every three years), I must pay $25 to sit through a six-hour class so that I may become even more responsible for the impulse-control deficiency of those who drink too much. I can be fined and possibly have my server permit suspended if I over-serve someone. The bright side of that is, I have the power to cut someone off or refuse to serve them even if management says to go ahead and sell the person another drink. I’ve told a manager before that he would have to find someone else to sell that “one more” drink because I wasn’t going to do it and I wanted it on record.
Full liquor licenses (required in order to sell hard liquor by the drink or to operate a store that sells alcohol in any form for the purposes of the buyer taking the alcohol out of the store) must be bought, and they usually run about $300,000. It is essentially an asset for a retailer. The license is specifically tied to the immediate premises of the business. This means that individual branches of a chain of convenient stores must each have its own license; there is no blanket-licensing available. The Alcohol & Gaming Division holds on file a detailed schematic drawing of the premises. No alcohol service takes place off that map unless the retailer applies for and is granted special permission to, say, cater a wedding reception.
Places like Pizza Hut or Fuddrucker’s that sell beer and/or wine may obtain a type of license known as a “restaurant license.” This type of license is issued by the state as requested. It’s a misleading name because someone with little knowledge of the differences in licensing levels may assume a restaurant license refers to the type of license that any restaurant might have. What it really is, though, is a license that allows the retailer to dispense pitchers, mugs, or bottles/cans of beer and glasses of wine (maybe bottles, I’m not sure) expressly for consumption while inside the establishment. The catch is, the beverages must be ordered at the counter, paid for at the counter, and brought to you by one of the staff of the restaurant.
The state is in the business of issuing full liquor licenses according to population, and since there hasn’t been much growth in that area, they haven’t issued one since 1982.
When a business comes into the state and wishes to buy a full service license, that business may approach another license holder and offer to buy their license. The existing owner of that license can sell it for whatever amount of money they want to hold out for. Recently, I heard of someone offering up to a half a million dollars for one.
In my town you can only by beer at gas stations and supermarkets while liquor stores can only sell hard liquor. No alcohol sales on Sunday or from 11:30 pm to 6:00 am on any other day.
I went to visit a friend in Arkansas and while it was strange to see both beer an liquor in a single liquor store what blew my mind was the fact they had drive-thru services! I had never heard of such a thing. On top of that, if you want a cup of ice all you have to do is ask, which bothered me.
But what tops all is a guy I work with who visited a friend in Louisana. Not only did they have drive-thru services but you could buy mixed drinks at the drive-thru - as in he got some kind of Everclear/fruit drink mixture in a plastic cup! Not only that but he went through six times in one night for more. How this is even remotely legal I have no clue.
Because at a liquor store I am always assessed and my ID checked, whereas I see people whom I know to be minors buying beer and wine at groceries and 7-11s, people who are clearly intoxicated and about to get into cars sold beer and wine, and my ID is never checked. As a community member, I want more deliberate enforcement. That said, I think the drinking age should by 18, but I still think ID should be checked.
I think liquor can’t be sold after midnight Saturday - I’ve been to parties where people drive to Illinois for late night booze runs when in St. Louis.
Here in Columbia, the minor in possession of alcohol law was amended. Before you could only get a MIP if you were caught with alcohol on your person. Now your body is a “container” so if a cop thinks you’re drunk and under 21 but have no booze on you, you can get a MIP. So if you decide to be smart and walk home from a party because you are too drunk to drive, you can get a citation just for having had alcohol.
. You only need to by 18 to serve or sell alcohol (indeed you can even be issued a liquor licence in you own name at 18 
). If that not confusing enough once in a blue moon a supermarket will teem up with a local winery and ger a special occasion permit to hold a wine tasting/sale in the store. The Liquor Control Board has recently begun renting space inside supermarkets and setting up One Stop Shops as an experiment. As for trading hours; bars must close by 2:00am but can reopen at 7:00am. The state stores can open between 11:00am and 9:00pm Mon-Sat, but often close earlier. Only 10% of stores can open on Sunday and then only noon-5pm.