This was correct. When we moved here, store hours were set by law: MTWT: 9AM-6PM, F: 9AM-9PM. Stores that sold food were not allowed to open before noon on Mondays. The law specified that that applied to stores whose main business was selling food, but some idiot judge tried to apply this to a large department store that had a small specialty food dept, saying that since no dept could claim to be the main business, he might as well call it the food section. The store finally just closed the food section Monday mornings. Then the law was changed to allow groceries and other businesses to open out of the prescribed hours only if they had four or fewer employees. This was interpreted to allow more than four if the extras were security personnel. So we had large markets operating with 4 employees and any number of security people doing things like checkout. AFAIK, that law is still in effect, but widely ignored. There are no 24 hour operation I am aware of but plenty of supermarkets and other large stores that operate 8AM-9PM seven days.
I grew up in Philadelphia. PA had various blue laws. No liquor sales on Sunday. Except during DST, this was interpreted to mean between 1AM Sunday and 1AM Monday. But the oddest was the restriction on baseball. Until the 1930s, it was banned. Then there was a compromise: no game could start before 1PM, which I understand, but also no game could continue past 7PM, reasons for which I cannot fathom. Since Sunday doubleheaders were standard in those days, this was a serious restriction and many games had to be suspended and finished later. I don’t know when this law was repealed. I tried to find out on the internet, but everything I googled told me only when the Sunday ban was repealed, not when the 7PM limit was lifted.
The county where I live in KY is wet but you can’t buy booze on Sunday at all, retail or in restaurants. The county Judge-Exec is trying to change that, but the churches still get worked up about it and the rest of us don’t really care–we’ve learned to keep a Sunday stash by now.
Annoyingly, I can buy all the cheap, nasty beer I want at grocery stores in Minnesota 24/7, as near as I can tell. If I want to get something worth drinking, I have to have daylight and not Sunday.
We moved to Alabama in the late 70s and my parents lived there until my father retired in 1999. When I was there in high school, a lot of stuff was closed on Sundays, though I think supermarkets were open, as well as some restaurants. Years after I moved away, probably in the late 80s or early 90s, I was visiting my parents and we went out for pizza on a Sunday evening. I tried to order a beer with my pizza, and the waitress looked at me with sorrow on her face and said “You’re not from around here, are you?” Very disappointing. I don’t think the Blue Laws are still in effect there, but maybe.
Until a few years ago, liquor stores in Colorado were closed by law on Sundays. Not sure if you could still buy the near-beer available in the supermarkets (anything stronger than 3.2% ABV can only be sold in liquor stores).
Side note: We visited my daughter in Germany this past summer while she was studying abroad in Tubingen. Labor laws there pretty much force stores to close there one day a week, and Sunday is usually the day. Museums and restaurants were open, but everything else was shut tight. We were only in Bavaria and Baden-Wurtemburg, but my understanding is that this is pretty much true nationwide.
Pennsylvania had Blue Laws when we moved there when I was 13. Most stores were closed or had limited hours on Sunday though I’m not sure how much of that was law and how much was tradition. The state controlled all liquor sales so I’m sure the State Stores were closed Sundays, off hand I can’t recall if bars were open on Sunday or not. As the economy worsened in the 70s there was a revolt during the 1976 Christmas season and most stores just ignored any restrictions at that point. I don’t recall the least bit of fuss as a result.
Illinois has blue laws against auto dealership being open on a Sunday. From what I’ve heard, the businesses actually prefer it that way which is why no one’s ever tried to change it. Customers like it since you can walk the lot without worrying about getting hassled.
Also, you can’t sell liquor until 11am (or noon?) on a Sunday which sort of sucks if you’re looking for a Bloody Mary with breakfast.
IIRC, one of the arguments for the repeal of Missouri Blue Laws [circa 1980] was that merchants could sell Playboy magazine [periodical], but not the Bible [book].
That and that Missouri was losing too much in sales taxes on Sunday to Illinois.
When I lived in Massachusetts, we would often get screwed during three-day weekends where the holiday fell on a Monday. The conversation would go something like this:
“Did you buy booze for the barbeque tomorrow?”
“I’m going to get it today.”
“It’s Sunday. Liquor store’s closed.”
“Shit. Now I have to go all the way to New Hampshire”.
Going to college in Pennsylvania, I always thought it was odd how beer was sold in one store and hard liquor in another.
Yeah, I was there then. The law was not religious, but intended to help the downtown merchants fight off the out lying discount stores and malls. You could buy beer and dirty magazines, I was told, but no pants or screw divers. New Mexico was worse. No package liquor. Bars were open, sure. But if you forgot to buy a six pack at closing time the night before, well it was just a real long day.
Until I want to say the late 60s basically no stores were open Sundays (just theaters and some places like that) but things could still be arranged if you knew the right tactics. In the Wyoming Valley of Pennsylvania the common sign on most shops was “CLOSED SUNDAYS - KNOCK AROUND BACK” since most shops had someone working inventory and the like on Sundays.
I live in Ohio and remember them very well. The Blue Laws helped us car racers! Our sports car club held autocrosses at the newly built (1966) Midway Mall in Elyria on Sundays. The only things open in the mall were the drug store and the theater. We held the races in the parking lot and drew very nice crowds. When the Blue Laws went away in the mid 1970s, most clubs went out of business with no where to hold autocrosses.
I can’t imagine any mall allowing a race to be held today with all the liability issues.
The first stores in the Cleveland area to try opening were the Uncle Bill stores, a local Walmart type company. Police would raid the stores and shut them down and even detain employees as I recall.
Isn’t there still a law in Texas stating that ‘dildos’ cannot be in the shape of a penis? I looked for that in the Wikipedia article, but that only covered alcohol.
Devices sold with the express purpose of genital stimulation fell afoul of Texas obscenity laws, so I believe they were typically sold with any explicit references on the packaging blacked out. I believe the law was declared unconstitutional finally.
You can get liquored up in a bar here? Since when? There must be a lot of counties that still ban sales on Sundays, because the last time I looked restaurants that served full meals and could permit children to enter could serve alcohol on Sundays, but bars, which is to say, primarily drinking establishments, that might serve fries or popcorn or something, but not full meals, and couldn’t permit children to enter, had to close on Sundays.
Also, it may not be a state law, but there are counties that will not issue a liquor license to a restaurant next to, or across the street from, a church, and it doesn’t matter it the church is an Episcopal church that regularly serves alcohol at receptions. There’s a restaurant in Bloomington, IN next to an Episcopal church that tried to get a waiver with a letter from the rector of the church saying the church was fine with them serving alcohol, but it didn’t work.
Auto sales are banned on Sundays, I have no idea why.
When my aunt and uncle first moved here in the 70s, there was an archaic anti-prostitution law still on the books, not enforced, that women couldn’t sit at the actual bar in bars, they had to sit at tables. Federal equal protection laws have superseded it.
Ohio has a bunch of byzantine regulations on when and where alcohol can be sold, and it includes a bunch of rules for Sunday, including that Sunday sales require a whole separate license (i.e. more money paid to the state). If you’re in a community that votes on new liquor licenses, the Sunday licenses will get a separate line on the ballot. The state has an 87 page manual on the types of votes that can be held regarding liquor licensing.
Otherwise, I think we’re free of the Sunday nonsense and have been for a long time.
When I was in high school in the mid-1970’s, my band got its first paid gig, playing at the Christmas party for a local department store (for $75!).
Our thrill was shattered, though, when the drummer’s very religious family refused to let him play, because this particular department store had recently been in the local news for defying blue laws and remaining open on Sundays. The sheriff had walked mid-day into the busy store (accompanied by a preacher who had set the whole thing up), clapped handcuffs on the store manager, and marched him downtown.
We got through the gig by playing songs that had no drum parts until the crowd was sufficiently liquored up, and then asked if anyone in the audience wanted to sit in (our drummer had let us bring his kit along). Thank God for booze!
The last I knew, it was still illegal in my (West Virginia) hometown to buy hard liquor on Sundays, or any alcoholic beverages before 1:00 PM on Sundays.
When I lived in Indiana I always interpreted this to mean that Jesus didn’t want you drinking on Sunday unless you drove a car out drinking at a bar so you could drive home drunk afterward, get in a nasty wreck, and Jesus could call you home.