Unless they make careful distinction about this, someone should really call a few times with the addresses of churches that use wine in their church services. I mean, hell, some of those kids aren’t even ten yet!
I’m not sufficiently pissed off about my state’s laws to put up a huge fuss, since they aren’t quite as draconian as Pennsylvania’s.
In Oregon, a minor can drink in his own home (but nowhere else) with parental permission. I can live with that for another 2 years.
If I do choose to do anything, I will wait until I’m 21 (just to avoid the criticism that I am doing this for my own personal benefit) then start an initiative petition to get a Lower Drinking Age measure on the ballot.
Pennsylvania people, please explain. The state sells you booze? If you buy a six pack, is the cashier a state employee?
Is the Sunday rule related to religion? If yes, how could it be passed?
The drinking age may have a chance to lower to 18 when the practice of drunk driving decreases. While attitudes and laws toward drunk driving have changed considerably in the last 20-30 years, there are still enough older voters who are scared that 18 year olds are gonna drink and drive like the older voters used to do at that age.
Wine and spirits (aka liquor) are sold by stores owned by the state and run by the PA Liquor Control Board.
Beer and other intoxicating stuff (I refuse to call Zima anything good, so intoxicating stuff it is) is sold at a beverage distributor, which is privately owned but subject to stupendous regulations.
For instance, if I go to the beer distributor and get a keg, I have to fill out a form with my name, address, and phone number that is turned in to the LCB. It also has the specific keg number so that if it is discovered at a party with underage drinkers they know exactly where to go. Failure to properly fill out the form is perjury. And it’s the same deal if you get a certain number of cases of beer.
And also, there is no such thing as a “bar” here, because officially they are required to have a certain amount of receipts be food-related. So the truth is that our restaurants just happen to have alcohol for sale.
Because of that, after 8 p.m. on the weekends all people under 21 are forbidden to go to places that serve alcohol unless the place has a clear delineation for the younger crowd (meaning a wall or something permanent and unpassable). The LCB has no mercy for people who serve underage. None.
I’d just like to say that the rules suck here. But you adapt and overcome. 
Yes they are, or were. They’re holdovers from the old “Blue Laws” that virtually every state had back in the day.
The difference between here and other states is that Pennsylvania is too conservative to change them.
Apparently here in Cali, you can’t buy alcohol on the night/morning of your 21st birthday, unless you go somewhere that specifically serves alcohol. Is this true in other states, as well? And for that matter, why do they care if you’ve only been 21 for an hour or so, versus being 21 for 5[sup]1/2[/sup] hours?
And as for drinking laws: which is safer, someone drinking in a bar where they’ll get cut off if they have to many, or someone trying to finish off all their alcohol at once in a friend’s backyard, 'cause if they get caught with it they’re in trouble? I know that it isn’t that simple, but still.
Coming from Texas, where alcohol is available in “wet” counties at every grocery store, convenience store, supermarket, liquor store, bar, and wherever else, Pennsylvania’s laws seem like a throwback to the good 'ol days of the temperance movement. Fortunately, if I really wanted to buy the stuff, there are state stores across the street from where I work, near where I live, and I’ve got access to the liquor store at our local military base.
I don’t know who the anti-alcohol people are trying to fool, but I don’t think their campaigns are based in reality. I think they’re scare tactics designed to keep more intelligent debate at bay.
No matter what my personal feelings are on the subject, however, the fact still remains that the legal drinking age in PA is 21. Period, end of discussion.
Robin
I’ve always found it strange that the American drinking age is so high. Blalron, you do have a point that the laws are not exactly well-thought-out, but they are the laws of your country. They suck, but they’re the law.
However, IMHO they ought to be changed. I drink myself, not excessively, but I do drink. I’ve never done anything stupid under the influence, and I hope to keep it that way. I think the longer you hold people back, the more crazy they’re going to act when finally they get their sweaty hands on the good stuff. Whereas by the time I reach the age of twenty-one, I’ll have been drinking for five years and more, and alcohol won’t be a big deal to me.
See, I think this is one of those things that won’t get changed any time soon, because the lobby isn’t a useful one (18, 19 and 20 year-olds who want to drink) and the drive isn’t strong enough (high school and college students aren’t having a tough time getting some booze). It’s much easier just to do your thing and be a little careful not to get caught than actually try to get organized and change the law.
To a lesser extent, I think pot is the same way. I realize that waaaay too many people are in jail for pot-related charges, and that there’s just no reason for it, but most pot smokers don’t feel like they’re really at risk of getting busted, and they just do their thing. No need to start a campaign, you know?
LC
I still don’t understand why I can buy beer on Sunday, but not wine. I like wine. I don’t like beer. I don’t really see the difference between them.
Yes, in Pennsylvania, one cannot purchase beer, wine, and whiskey under the same roof. Beer and wine must be separated from one another in a system of rigid segregation at all times. Maybe it’s meant to be a reminder that if you mix your booze, you may get sick.
I’m in Maryland now, where if I’m having a party, I can actually buy my beer and wine at the same place at the same time. It’s like heaven. Well, at least it’s damn convenient.
Reminds me of something rather stupid that happened to me a few months back:
I’m a sophomore at X High School. MADD was doing some stupid “Prom Promise” thing, where you promise you won’t drink any alcohol on prom night. My friend Ben and I signed after hearing rumors that all who signed would get free pizza. (I’ll do ANYTHING for free pizza. I would stick my balls in boiling grease for free pizza.) So we sign it. The pizza party is held. I go, but find out I can’t attend. Why? Because I’m a sophomore.
On prom night, I was tempted to down a few bottles of vodka, then go out driving just to spite them. Fuck you, MADD.
No, because in Pennsylvania the only place you can buy a six pack is at a bar or at a ‘six pack and sandwich shop’. You can buy beer by the case at privately owned beer distributors, at which you can also get party balls, quarter kegs, half kegs and kegs, but no sixers. If you want to buy wine or liquor, you have to go to the state wine and spirits store where the employees are employees of the state, the PA LCB (Pennsylvania Liquor Control Board).
Really? Three weeks ago when I went to pick up a keg for a party I was at the only thing they asked for was either a deposit on the keg or a local address written on a napkin (that’s what we were handed) so they could make sure they got their keg back. We weren’t even carded.
Bar 11, The Tiki Bar, Lava Lounge, The Attic, Jets, Rock Jungle and various others serve no food at all. Bars exist, however, they cannot be open on Sunday unless a certain percentage of their business recipts involve food. Either that or the laws differ from Pittsburgh to Harrisburg.
The fact that there is effectively a national 21 drinking age in the US is another example of the Feds using control of highway funding for questionable purposes, some might suggest to perform an end run around the tenth ammendment. The Uniform Drinking Age Act was initiated under Reagan, and lowered Federal transportation funds to states that did not have a 21 drinking age. Much like the enaction of the double nickel in 70’s. “Regulation of interstate commerce” has turned out to be one hell of a blunt instrument.
Before that time, they varied. PA was 21 already, and had been for a long time. The “state store” system that still exists there was also prevelant in states like West Virginia. I remember my “LCB” card as a PA resident - it was laminated plastic and had a picture ID on it at a time when the PA driver’s license was cardboard with no photo.
I will grant the uniform age one thing - I was 18 in PA at a time when PA was 21 and NY was 18. Guess what that fact lead to - yup, runs to NY state to drink (In my case, 40-50 miles). The number of drunks on the road because of drinking age disparities between the states was one of the things that contributed to the “uniform age” push. I still don’t know that the end justified the means.
Logically, I think I can make a case that the age, if we’re going to have one, should be 19. Two institutions which serve as “buffer zones” into adulthood in the US are college and the military - those points are probably the points at which you should allow people to drink legally, while not wanting high school kids to be able to. 19 is a compromise - 18 is a little too close to the age of most high school seniors, and there will be a few of them turn 18 before graduation. 19 inconveniences the average entering college freshman and new soldiers a bit, but they will probably be legal long before they leave college or the military. Idaho’s drinking age used to be 19.
If these “Blue Laws” aren’t unconstitutional, I don’t know what is!
That’s interesting. It might be two then, because I had to fill one of those things out once upon a time. Since your experience is more recent than mine, I’ll accept that. 
And the same with this. The limitation is on Sundays. Again, my bad.
It’s always good to get the laws clarified. Even so, you have to give me some credit. I was close, if nothing else.
You know, one day I’ll learn to check who’s logged in before I post.
Anyway, I Googled Blue Laws, and there’s just not that buch there to look at, but this should whet your appetite, Litost.
Close is good. The keg thing might be for two or more kegs, because we had already gotten one half barrel and then had to go out and get another, which we ended up going to a different beer store for because the first beer store was out of our brand.
They seemed mainly interested in if they’d get their keg back.
I didn’t see anyone there at the time getting more than one barrel. The early dry time and the ‘no bars on Sunday’ thing more bullshit parts of the whole ‘we cannot encourage drinking’.
The funny thing is that a lot of people don’t want six packs sold in grocery stores because ‘it might encourage binge drinking’, so instead they force you to buy a whole case at the beer distributor which hell, you paid for it you might as well drink it before it gets skunky.