I think Threshers, with the rest of the FirstQuench group, went bust a couple of years ago, slightly to my annoyance.
All premises with an on-licence can also sell for consumption off the premises; you could always buy, e.g., an unopened bottle of wine over the bar, and take it home (though it was an expensive way to buy wine).
Strictly speaking, the disctinction was between an off-license, and an on-and-off-license, but nobody ever used the latter phrase.
Earlier this year, I think, wasn’t it?
Oh well, I can’t count even with no nearby offy to mess up my head. 
Just before last Christmas. The one on the corner near me was going down hill, then closing down with an everything must go sale before metamorphosing into a Rhythm and Booze.
Very minor points considering the original question, but I’m going to be a little pedantic:
Department stores don’t have some kind of exemption - they have to have a license. You’ll see a small sign somewhere giving the detail of the licensee, the age restrictions and purchasing hours restrictions of buying that gift set with the Baileys, or the mini Jack Daniels with matching glass.
The restricted hours in Scotland changed last September. You now can’t purchase alcohol before 10am on any day of the week (it used to be 8am Monday to Saturday, and 12.30pm on Sunday). At the other end of the day, the restriction of 10pm for off sales now applies to pubs as well as off-licenses, which leads to many a disappointed person trying to buy an after-hours bottle to take away.
That’s not what I meant. They certainly have signs saying “off-license” and sometimes include it in their name.
I meant that technically they aren’t “an off-license”; they have that license. Their business documents won’t refer to them as “an off-license”.
I was just trying to reinforce my point that it was a colloquial phrase, not that they never used the words for advertising purposes.
I think what people are trying to say is that “off-license” does not mean “sales which are ‘off’ [i.e., not according to the terms of] a license” but rather a “license for off [”-premises sales" is understood]".
One thing that may not be obvious to Brits is that in North America, the regulation of alcoholic beverage sales is a state or provincial concern. In some states, the purchase of anything containing alcohol other than mouthwash, tinctures, and other such specialty items is restricted to state ABC [Bureau of Alcoholic Beverage Control] stores. In others, private liquor stores are licensed. Beer and/or wine may be sold in supermarkets or groceries or restricted to the liquor stores. (In New York one can buy beer in supermarkets and convenience stores, but must buy wines, like distilled beverages, at liquor stores; in North Carolina, the wines are on aisle 11, across from the pickles, and distilled stuff is available only from ABC stores.) There are also a few “dry” towns and counties scattered around, where no alcoholic beverages can be sold (though nothing prohibits buying them in the next county and bringing them home to the dry county). It’s a real crazy quilt of regulations.
Supermarket aisles are standardized in North Carolina?
In short, an off-licence is a dedicated beer, spirits and wine shop which sells nothing else (setting aside crisps [chips] sweets [candy] and peanuts etc. which may be classed as party supplies) while there are now many other outlets selling alcohol to take out.
Actually there are dry towns in Alaska where it’s completely illegal to drink or bring alcohol in that’s was legally purchased in wet towns.
To say the least. According to this Wikipedia article, there were over 500 dry municipalities in the U.S. as of 2004. It notes that three states (Kansas, Mississippi, and Tennessee) are “dry by default”; in those states, you can only purchase alcohol if the local municipality has explicitly allowed it.
And if you consume too much you end up in the “ozzie”
Moore County, Tennessee is one of these dry counties. It also has one of the US’s largest distilleries, Jack Daniel’s. I have not done their tour, so I don’t know if they’re allowed to do tastings.
Speaking of off licenses, we have one very unusual bar in Los Angeles called the Golden Gopher. What’s unusual about it is that you can drink there as you would normally do at a bar, but they also sell all kinds of alcohol for off-premises consumption. It turns out that this is stipulated in their license which dates to 1905–which further shows that, with the advent of Prohibition, existing licenses merely went dormant instead of being utterly extinguished.
I haven’t been there, but it’s on my list.