Then I think it’s totally fair to criticize watchwolf49 for saying that Oregon has socialized the liquor industry
Bad watchwolf, for saying that Oregon has socialized the entire liquor industry, instead of limiting your comments to liquor sales only. Next time, say something like “Oregon liquor sales is completely socialized.”
Details are important.
Nevada, and I think Louisiana & Missouri’s liquor laws are similar.
IIRC Louisiana managed to hold out until 1996 threw some carefully worded laws; it was illegal for anyone under 21 purchase, but illegal to sell alcohol to anyone under 18. Even today several states allow under-21s to drink in bars & restaurants if accompanied by a parent/guardian/spouse of legal age (& even more allow them to drink at home under the same conditions).
I’m pretty sure the FAA doesn’t allow commercial airline pilots to consume marijuana at all.
Bars & restaurants are allowed to sell beer (+ hard cider & wine coolers) to go by the 6-pack or bottle, but there’s a limit of 2 6-packs (or equivalent) per transaction. This restriction can be circumvented by taking your beer outside after you purchase it and then immediately going back into the store.
Some supermarkets now sell beer, but only if they get provide seating & get their delis reclassified as restaurants (& must by law allow alcohol consumption on premises). You can also save money and go directly to a beer distributor (some of which are drive-tru), but they can only sell by the case or keg.
Wine & spirits are only available in state-run “Wine & Spirits Shoppes” (aka state stores); though in-state wineries can sell their own products directly to the public (& even operate a limited number of off-site shops). I’ve never seen one personally, but the liquor control board does operate a few locations attached to (but separate from) supermarkets. There was also a widely unpopular experiment with selling wine from LCB vending machines located in supermarkets, but that’s over with.
Thank Og I live in California and travel mainly to Nevada. The laws on alcohol elsewhere are just byzantine.
Years ago, I used to do some business in Oklahoma. Not sure if it’s still that way, but the bars in Tulsa were “drinking clubs”. You could bring your own bottle in (or maybe you could buy one there) and they’d keep it on the shelf for you and poor you drinks from it. Seemed pretty weird to even a New England boy like me (hadn’t really settled in CA yet).
And there was some sort of exemption you could get if you were from out of state. The guy I did business with would take me to his “club” after work, and as long as I showed a business card that proved I was from out of state, they could serve me from his stash. Not sure if that was actually legal, or just an invention of the “club” we went to.
But then, when you’re eating fried chicken livers with your beer, it all seems pretty foreign!! 
A few additions (I live in Indianapolis):
No-sale days also include a few major holidays (Christmas, New Year’s Day, perhaps some others), and while they just recently allowed sales on Election Day, many retailers still act as if the ban on that day are in effect. No-sale days begin at 3 AM of the day, and extend to 7 AM the next day.
Breweries and wineries can sell their product on Sundays, to lessen impact on tourism. Restaurant sales on Sunday are weird; if the restaurant brews on site, they’re covered by the brewery/winery exemption (even allowing take-out), but otherwise sales aren’t until noon, must be purchased with food (perhaps the restaurant’s way of ensuring that their 50% of sales being food is enforced), must be consumed on-premises, and most places require the sale and consumption to be in a bar area separate from the dining room. I was rather surprised at a few local breakfast cafes that sell mimosas in the morning, don’t know what loophole they might be using.
The convenience store rule is not statewide. Convenience stores (including those which sell gas) are classified as groceries, and can get a license just like standard groceries; local authorities may decide to not sell licenses to them, but they’re pretty common in central Indiana. Don’t know if any are allowed to sell liquor, but many sell beer, malt beverages, and wines. There was a news story recently on the biggest gas station chain in the state selling alcohol on Christmas.
Groceries (including the aforementioned convenience stores) can’t sell cold beer, but cold wine and malt liquors can be sold, which leads to the weird situation where you can get higher ABV beverages ready-to-drink. And liquor stores can sell soda (and juices), but they have to be warm. Most also sell a limited variety of snacks and such (Beer Nuts and such are usually by the counter), possibly just of the “change maker” variety. The vending machines outside of liquor stores that sell cold sodas have to be owned/filled/maintained by an outside company.
Between 1960 and 1970:
I was born in Ohio - liquor by the bottle was available only at “Package Stores” operated by the State. I moved out before that was changed
I moved to IN - by the drink was illegal until the late 60’s when they decided they wanted to go for the convention market, and people at conventions are going to want liquor by the drink. The original law was specific as to Gross Revenue, % of food vs alcohol. Your basic bar still required you to BYO - you had to have sales over a certain (high) dollar amount before you could get a by-the-drink license. Only “high class” joints could serve liquor. Poor people can’t be trusted.
This was while assholes in Kansas were raiding trains and busting everyone if they didn’t have the booze locked up when they crossed the state line.
Liqueur laws are a strange animal. In PA you can’t sell anything but cases if you are a beer distributor, but can sell single or 6 packs or other smaller quantities ‘to go’ if you are a restaurant or bar. I found a store that sold beer cans and bottles as singles and also sold microwave pizza (so qualified itself as a restaurant), and bars that would sell you a Coor’s Lite for $3 if you drank it there or $1 if you carried it out.
It seems that the situation in the USA is as confused as it is here in the UK. I suppose that governments the world over want to do two things; raise taxes from the sale of alcohol, and control the consumption. These are obviously contradictory to some extent. The various churches also stick their oars in to stop people having a drink on their holy days.
Some years ago the law here was significantly loosened, and most of the restrictions on Sunday sales were removed, as were the restrictions on what times we can buy it during the week. All bars and clubs are licenced and the licence will have time restrictions (24 hour opening is possible but rare). Often the restriction is for the benefit of the neighbours so that they are not woken by drunk people slamming car (taxi obviously) doors slamming, and loud arguments.
So - in general you will find most pubs open from 10am to 11pm 7 days a week. Supermarkets (nearly all of them sell alcohol) and off licences(liquor stores) can and do open 24/7. Clubs, usually situated in non residential areas, open and close much later. A visitor to London’s Smithfield meat market at 5am might be surprised to see the white coated blood stained butchers and their workers, mixed up with fluorescent haired, micro skirted girls and men, stumbling out into the sunrise from the clubs.
The law on age is very different and I quote from the government website: Alcohol and young people - GOV.UK
So - If you take your family to a pub for Sunday lunch, you can have a nice bottle of wine, and you can share it with your children so long as they are over 16.
The thing about “not displaying the liquor within X feet of the gas pumps” actually makes sense in a weird way. I guess that the intent was that if you really wanted to buy liquor while filling up the car, you could. However, it removed the “impulse buying” or other temptations for people whose original intention was to just stop and fill up with gas - sort of the equivalent of “don’t put the display in the checkout aisle”. Rather than try to craft a law to say “reduce impulse buying” they came up with the simplest and most easily enforced rule, distance.
I remember when the (government) liquor stores in Ontario did not have shelves you helped yourself from; they had a list of what they stocked, you filled in a card, took it to the counter, and an employee went into the back and fetched what you asked for. The 1960’s were before I was old enough to use the system, but I assume they kept your name and liquor purchase on file for a while…
The point is that alcohol is a very destructive drug - probably as bad socially and medically as any of the banned substances - except it has social uses too. People who say “why do they try to restrict…” probably have not had close encounters with the worst effects of alcohol, or do not realize the cost to the state of those consequences. My parents were social drinkers, but I never saw them drunk. I have peripheral contact with people who have destroyed their lives with alcohol. Probably a lot of policing costs relate to alcohol abuse.
We may find some laws about alcohol antiquated and misguided, but the intent was there to reduce consumption, the frequency of drunkeness, and its social consequences. Like laws for almost anything else, they were often futile and frequently ignored, and had unintended consequences.
I wouldn’t argue. The experience of Prohibition alone, being the culminating victory of the temperance movement, should prove at least the gist of what you’re saying. I think the War On Drugs will end up in the same historical file.
And I think we’ve established that pretty much all the weird no-sales, special sales and never-on-Sunday stuff is leftover blue laws/temperance nonsense.
All that said, I think an enforced break in 24-hour sales is probably to the good; having to stop at some ridiculous hour like 2 a.m. has probably halted many a bender or other stupid action. I wouldn’t seek to curtail 24-hour sale wherever it exists, but neither would I get behind efforts to repeal 2-6 am bans and the like unless the proponents could come up with something better than a vague personal freedoms argument.
In the UK, there have been recent attempts to stop sales of very cheap alcohol. In Scotland there is a minimum price of 50p per unit. (about 80 cents). A similar proposal in England and Wales was shelved for some reason. Since a drinkable bottle of wine from a supermarket costs around £6 and contains around 9 units, it would not affect me in the slightest.
That said, a quick search found Frosty Jacks’ Cider - "Cider containing sugar, sweeteners and sulphites to preserve freshness and maintain the perfect taste. What’s Inside Refreshing, simple and satisfying cider, the pride and joy of the cider maker himself - Frosty!" This can be found at less than 25p per unit (40 cents) A 3 litre bottle costs £4.50 ($7.50) or two for £7.00 ($11.40). This stuff is for students and alcoholics only.
No cites, but it seems to make sense to have breaks in liquor sales. I know many drunks that will keep drinking until they pass out. Saying that it is now closing time and you have to go home stops a non-zero number of people from continuing to drink until they are so blind drunk that they will do something illegal.
Obviously it’s not foolproof and it does seem silly that one can buy a case of whiskey on Saturday night to drink all day Sunday, but that same person can’t enjoy a cocktail with dinner on Sunday evening at a restaurant. But all laws that draw arbitrary lines suffer from the same defects. Absent some overwhelming liberty interest to have booze available for sale at all times, I have no problem with the restrictions.
There are similar laws in California. A local dairy has a drive-thru outlet that also sells beer. But they can’t give it to you through the car window. You have to open the door and step out of the car before they will hand you your 6-pack. That way it’s a “walk-up” sale rather than a “drive-up.”
That’s more than half the day. So, why is Andy Capp always going on about having to drop what he’s doing because it’s opening time?
In a previous life I lived in Utah. Anything packaged liquor over 3.2% can only be sold at the state outlet. There are some outlets that have an incredible selection of wine. A private business might be more concerned with product turnover.
Previously they wouldn’t pass on vender’s discounted promotions. As a price reduction might increase consumption. Now they do pass on the promotions.
State liquor profits contribute to the school lunch program.
Sure you have to plan ahead and buy when they are open. But as far as I am concerned I like the system.
There has been some discussion to turn the booze sales to private industry. After seeing what happened in WA state, it doesn’t seem like a good idea.
Not to dismiss that there are a lot of strange booze laws in Utah, but I like their state packaged booze stores.
That is similar to a place around here. There is a local store that sells a little bit of all kinds of drinks and tobacco products and has a drive thru window.
You can drive up to the window and buy sodas, coffee, cigarettes, candy bars, chewing gum, cigars, milk, orange juice, chewing tobacco, AND beer and wine. You want liquor? Sorry, go park your car and walk in the store. No liquor sales through the window.
Here in NC, the state owns liquor sales and distribution. In Michigan, the state is the sole distributor. However, IIUIC, no state agency actually ever transports or takes possession of the liquor; this “distribution” is entirely a matter of paperwork; a way for the state to get its money without calling it a tax. IMHO, the MI system works way better for the consumer, because you can buy liquor anyplace with a license; they can sell any kind of liquor they want, etc. So, you can get common brands in convenient places like the grocery store, or you can find rare specimens in a boutique specialty shop. Here in NC, if the ABC doesn’t carry it, you can ask them to order it, and … well, I’m not sure what happens after that. But you can’t browse for rarities, and you can only buy it on ABC premises at their operating hours. BTW, NC is preparing to sell ABC to an independent contractor. I think we’d be better off if they switched to a Michigan-style system.
According to Ayn Rand, government control with private ownership is “fascism”. Communism is government ownership of all industry. Socialism is more loosely defined. According to the Wikipedia definition cited above, I think the term applies, but limited to liquor sales and/or distribution.
What’s your point here? That it is impossible to socialize the liquor sales industry because it’s too narrow to be considered an industry, and socialism only applies to whole industries?
It seems to me that “socialized liquor sales” makes perfect sense. But we could be more specific and say “Government ownership of liquor sales.” Is there really that big a difference?
“Okay, gosh, you win, you can have it, but you gotta give me a minute to find a box to put it it. Okay?”
I could restate my point yet again but you’re so fixated on calling it “socialized” that it would be a waste of time. Yes, of course, there are only two sociopolitical schemes on earth, the Free Market and Socialism.
No. I don’t consider government ownership/control of liquor retailing to be the same as government ownership/control of “the liquor industry.” No, I don’t consider government ownership/control of liquor sales to be “socialist” in any way. Learn to live with disappointment.
… but you repeat yourself. 
Are they still selling Super Beer and Super Cider?
You seem to be continually ignoring the fact that YOU are the only person in this entire thread using the term “liquor industry”, everyone else is talking about liquor sales/retailing. Nobody is claiming that ownership of retailing is the same as ownership of the “liquor industry”. It’s ownership of retailing, and retail is not only an industry in its own right, but it is a direct customer facing industry that affects anyone who wishes to use the product.