State Liquor Stores

Factual Questions
41

Jack Daniels is in Lynchburg Tennessee in Moore County which is indeed dry.

It’s another fun little north/south culture shock as benefit from marriage to my Michigan born husband. We went up there over Thanksgiving to visit with several of his friends who were also in town and we got to go to my favorite store Meijer’s and I was just amazed that we could buy our chips and our wine and our beer and our liquor and, oh yeah, milk and cereal for the next morning all in one place. I felt like taking off my shoes and chewing hayseed I looked like such a country bumpkin gaping at the possiblities.

42

Wow, I never realized how good we had it in Kentucky. Don’t tell the folks in Frankfort about the state-run package store thing, though–they would love to jump on that!

The wet/dry issue is a pain in the arse sometimes. The one-horse I grew up in is dry, but the next county over just went wet a few years ago. This spawned the now-infamous “Beer Trailer”, which is situated on the county line across from the Torrent Church of God. The last time I drove by they were also selling Beanie Babies.

In general, in a wet county, you can buy beer at the grocery store, but wine and the hard stuff have to be bought elsewhere. Wine coolers, by the way, are no longer called such; they are actually a malt beverage, like beer, so if they don’t call themselves wine coolers they can be sold as beer.

Dr. J

Oh, and I don’t think it’s true anymore, but it used to be that Christian Co. was wet but Bourbon Co. was dry.

43

Here in Chicago, it is very easy to get a precinct voted “dry.” I don’t mean a ban on possessing or consuming alcohol, but a ban on its sale, both in packages and for drinking on-premises. In other words, when a precinct is voted dry, all existing liquor licenses in that precinct are revoked and no new ones may be issued.

Now for those who don’t know Chicago political organization, a precinct is NOT a police division (police stations serve “districts” not “precincts”). Instead, the city is divided into 50 wards (each represented by an alderman on the City Council), and a precinct is a subdivision of a ward. There are over 2500 precincts!

What has happened over the last 5-10 years is that a lot of people who used to live in the suburbs have moved back into the city. While many understood exactly what they were getting into, some don’t grasp the concept of “when in Rome, do as the Romans do.” They object to the noise, traffic, and other side effects of the many bars, nightclubs, restaurants, and other night life locations (that the same people patronized when they lived in the suburbs but went into the city on Saturday nights to party!) So they start a petition drive to vote the precinct dry, to get rid of the “problem” bars. You don’t need a lot of signatures to get the prohibition vote on the next referendum ballot. And if the measure carries, which isn’t hard since precincts are so small, not only will the “problem” bar lose its liquor license, but every bar and store in the precinct that WAS obeying the law and policing their customers loses their licenses along with the “bad” bars! So many precincts have done this that some people call it a new Prohibition! In Chicago, no less.

To show how bad this gets, the famous House of Blues is in Marina City, right across the river from the Loop itself. The neighborhood has dozens of bars and nightclubs, as well as restaurants that serve beer and wine with meals to the daily office crowd at lunch. It also has several new loft condo buildings, and the new residents of these lofts have started a petition drive to vote the precinct dry because they object to the crowds and noise from House of Blues! HELLO! You’re in the same neighborhood as the Merchandise Mart and several other office buildings, hotels, theaters, and art galleries. The L goes through the middle of your neighborhood. Hell, you moved right across the river from one of the busiest downtowns on the face of the Earth! And you’re going to shut down a popular bar due to noise and crowds?!?! Get realistic, people!

But the problem is that they CAN do it, without much difficulty. Because they want peace and quiet in the very hub of a metropolis of seven million (again, get real!), they can shut down several world-famous establishments that entertain thousands of customers, employ hundreds of people, and raise millions of dollars in tax revenue.

44

In PA the state changed the name of our liquor stores from State Liquor Store to Wine & Spirits Shoppe to make them more consumer friendly! What a joke! Shopping in them feels like shopping in the Soviet Union! The staff usually don’t know jack about what they’re selling. And they sell wine and spirits and only wine and spirits. No beer! Though recently they’re started to sell corksrews and wine-sleeves. The Liquor Control Board recently annouced a plan to open stores inside supermarkets in major cities. And about 10% of all liquor stores, private wineries, & beer distibuters are open on Sundays. They should privatize all the stores and let beer & wine be sold in supermarkets. Oh and does any other state require you to be 21+ to buy non-alcoholic beer and wine?