Okay, what’s up with that? What will be next, State House of Sin or State Opium Dens? In some states, the only entity allowed to sell this controlled substance is good ole’ Johnny Law himself. Best of all, these stores are set up in places you must drive to get to.
What’s up with this? To what other states, aside my beloved adopted Ohio, has this menace spread? And weren’t we working on DE-centralization?
I have been in a few states that have this. Pennsylvania and Virginia. I know there are others. The reason for this is probably economic, if the state sells it, they get a bigger piece of the pie than if they just tax it. Although, when it was set up, they probably gave some sort of excuse like protection of the children, or to prevent too many liquor stores opening up and flooding the market or something like that.
For a real interesting perspective, go from a state with state controlled alcohol to one where drive-thru liquor stores are allowed.
I doubt seriously that state controlled stores do anything more than bring in more cash for the state.
I’ve seen these in Penn. and Virginia too, although IIRC the ones in Virginia were for hard liquor only - you could get beer and wine at the local Food Lion. (Which was a shock, coming from a place where EVERYTHING was sold at the liquor store.)
In Montgomery County, in Maryland, the liquor stores are owned by the county. Hence, it’s the only county you can buy beer in a supermarket. (Well, in the area, anyway. I’m not sure about Baltimore or Western MD.) I think the argument is something along the lines of what opera said - it brings in more money for the county. (Whether they need it with the tax rate they charge is another story entirely… 
)
“There is such a fine line between stupid and clever.” – David St. Hubbins, Spinal Tap
Any of you ever been to Utah, land of annoying liquor laws? Not only can you only buy liquor at state stores, but the state stores have funky hours, and it’s actually against the law to keep things refridgerated… like not having the ability to buy cold beer is going to make all us drunks quit drinking. In actuality, it makes us drink more red wine (served warm, of course) out of frustration.
Not only that, but most parts of the state don’t have bars. We spent a good three hours trying to stop for a drink, and the only place you could get one is at a restaurant, and they can’t sell you a beer without a food purchase.
<sigh> I long for good ol’ Michigan, where the corner gas station sold beer, wine, and hard liquor 'til 2 am…
Where I grew up in rural Oklahoma, you could only get liquor at a restaurant if you belong to a ‘private’ club. Which basically meant you had to sign a little business card for that restaurant and show it to get your drinks. You were supposed to bring your own bottle and they would mix you a drink out of your own bottle. What a joke.
As far as the liquor stores… let’s just say, “here’s joke number two”. No liquor stores could have refrigerators in them, they couldn’t sell premixed drinks, they couldn’t sell anything EXCEPT liquor. You had to get your cokes and candy and gum at a different store. The sign out front could only say “Liquor Store”, and the letters on the sign could only be a maximum of 6 inches tall. (although the sign could be as big as you wanted). We didn’t really have bars, but we had taverns where you could drink all the 3.2 beer in the world. You had to be 21 to go in there, but you only had to be 18 to buy 3.2 beer at the quickstop. I don’t live there now, but I think most of that has changed.
Enright3
You gays can consider yourselvs lucky for here in Iceland the liqor shops are open from nine to five…
They are run be the state with prices from the state.
For ex: Bottle of vodka $43
Sixpack of beer: $16,5
Your in trouble were in trouble
Thor
For the record, here in Virginia, you can buy beer and wine in grocery stores, but you have to go to a liquor store to buy the hard stuff.
I had the reverse Virginia-Pennsylvania experience. My wife is from Mercer, PA, and the first time we went to her home, I was astonished to find that you couldn’t buy beer in convenience stores and grocery stores…
It gets even more convoluted in PA. You can only buy wine and hard liquor in state stores, but they can’t sell nonalcoholic mixers at the same place–only in grocery stores. Presumably this keeps kids from running in to buy a bottle of tonic water and being corrupted by seeing all that booze. Beer, at least in my small town, could only be purchased by the case at drive-through distributors (although bars could sell you a six-pack). All of these had to be closed on Sundays (separation of church and state–yeah, right).
I also lived in Ohio for a while, where beer and wine could be sold in grocery stories and convenience stores (although the latter had to lock the cases on Sundays.) The weirdest thing, though, was that groceries could also sell gin, etc., as long as it was watered down to be no higher proof than wine.
How do these laws get passed?
Hey, Melatonin . . . what do you mean you have to drive to get there? Like they intentionally placed a liquor store in the middle of nowhere?
I live in Ohio, and the closest liquor store is on a residential street.
New Hampshire’s got state liquor stores as well. Beer is freely available in convenience stores, groceries and supermarkets, but for the hard stuff you gotta go to the Green Front (as we Downeast Yankees like to call 'em) and stock up there. Fortunately, I lived in a border town (Nashua) and could easily get to Massachusetts, where no such restrictions existed and the prices were a little less evil on the wallet.
All Hail Unca Cecil, or the next best thing available!
“Hey, Melatonin . . . what do you mean you have to drive to get there? Like they
intentionally placed a liquor store in the middle of nowhere?”
Understand my perspective here. In all the places I’ve lived since coming of age (Florida, Moscow) liquor sales are a private business. In Florida, there were generally two liquor stores located within a few blocks of home and in Moscow- well, you figure it out. In FL, liquor stores sell all sorts of alcohol, but other stores can only sell wine and beer.
The liquor store here is located somewhere downtown like, in an area I have no particular desire to visit. It took me a couple of months before I figured out where it was. And, yes, it has probably reduced my consumption of gin and vodka in particular. But it hasn’t really had much effect on my alcohol consumption as a whole.
Okay, I’m really just whining. I admit it. All I really want is the freedom to wake up from an afternoon nap, stroll on down to the store, pick up a liter of Smirnoff and swill.
In Canada, hard liquor is only available at government liquor stores, but cold beer & wine stores can sell, well, cold beer & wine.
I’ve never found this to be a particular problem. There’s a liquor store conveniently located on the ground floor of the building in which I work, which is convenience at its best. The only thing that bugs me about liquor stores here in BC is that they don’t take credit cards - some sort of Big Brother thing trying to stop people from going into debt for booze, I guess.
In New Hampshire, along I-95 (I think), there IS a liquor store in the “middle of nowhere”. At least, I can’t recall seeing anything around it; there may have been a town a few miles off the interstate, but to all appearances it was a liquor store with its own highway exit. It also had a highway sign announcing it of the huge variety more commonly used to let you know that you’re approaching Los Angeles or the city of New York (you know, the stretch-across-several-lanes sort).
I thought it was particularly amusing that it was located not too far from the Massachusetts border and on the southbound side: “You can drink and drive if you like, as long as you’re headed towards MA.”
The liquor laws that permit the sale of watered-down gin, etc. probably regulate only the concentration of alcohol allowed and not the specific type, so it’s not THAT weird (actually, the concept of a store WANTING to sell watered-down gin – or of anyone wanting to BUY it – seems stranger to me than the fact that they’d be allowed to do so).
In some states, liquor regulations are set by the county. This leads to some truly bizarre situations (for instance, I remember hearing that the Jack Daniels distillery is in a “dry” county; they can make it there, but they can’t serve it).
I grew up in Missouri near the Kansas border (well, about 50 miles from it). At the time the legal drinking age in MO was 21, but in KS it was only 18 for beer, so a lot of people I knew would make the drive (not me: I don’t like beer, and the drinking age for the good stuff was 21 in both places). The problem, of course, is that if you bring it home to drink later, you can be arrested for possession, and if you drink it there, you have to drive home in that condition, which is ALSO illegal.
In Texas, liquor laws can vary by city. So in Tarrant county (where I live) one city allows sale of any kind of alcohol, although only liquor stores sell hard liquor. In other cities, only beer and wine can be sold, and yet others only beer can be sold. In Arlington (TX) you couldn’t even buy wine coolers, leading to that abomination, malt coolers (Yech!) So Melatonin, not only do I have to drive to the liquor store, but I have to drive to another freakin’ city! And you know that the liquor stores on the borders are tres expensive. Every time one of the 'burbs decides to open up the laws a bit, the liquor store owners get with the local preachers and get it voted out.
Mastery is not perfection but a journey, and the true master must be willing to try and fail and try again
I think that liquor laws are controlled by individual counties within each state as a rule. One county may outlaw all alcohol sales past 12 midnight and on Sundays, whereas another permits sales until 2am, 5 days a week. But State Liquor Stores, we’d assume from the name, are something mandated by the state.
Zyada, I used to live in Houston. As I recall, any fourteen year old with breasts could purchase beer at a convenience store. The laws may have changed since then (ha).
“whereas another permits sales until 2am, 5 days a week.”
Erm, let’s make that “until 2am, 7 days a week.”
More dramatic that way, eh?
I’m sorry!
Mastery is not perfection but a journey, and the true master must be willing to try and fail and try again
Get this! I forget what the laws were at the time in Indiana, but when I was a kid my great aunt went to the grocery store to buy vanilla and they wouldn’t sell it to her because it was Sunday! That’s harsh!
quote: Zyada, I used to live in Houston
quote: I’m sorry!
Yeah, me too. But it’s been almost 9 years, and I’m slowly but surely getting over it.
I don’t know if this applies throughout California, but I’ve lived in Orange, Riverside, San Bernardino, San Deigo and LA counties and it applies to all of those…
we can get any type of liquor at the grocery store (hard alcohol, wine, beer, etc), at the corner market, sometimes even at a gas station. I think that bars have to stop serving alcohol at 2am - not sure if stores do as well (I think they do - for some reason I recall 1:45 am last minute beer runs). And you can buy it any day of the week. Most restaurants sell, at minimum, beer and whine. The good ones can also mix you a nice drink.
jeez@all those states with restrictions - I think I’d go nuts