Here, in Quebec, stores can sell alcohol between 8am and 11pm.
In bars, last call is 3am.
What’s the dif? You can buy enough alcohol at 10:59pm to go wild in the streets until dawn. So what’s the dif to sell alcohol at 4am? Furthermore, what’s the difference if bars sell alcohol til 3 or 6 or 9am? Their closing hours are up to them. If they want to close at 3, fine. If they decide it’s profitable not to close at all, so what?
In other provinces/countries, they don’t even sell booze on Sundays at all. (Mind you, here in Quebec, that would undoubtedly cause a riot). Some won’t even take BOTTLES back on a Sunday, even if you aren’t buying booze.
Like everything else that makes no sense whatsoever…blame the Puritans and associated busybodies. Alcohol sales on “The Lord’s Day?” Blasphemy!!! Logic rarely enters into it.
Ya think?! Not so sure ~ about here anyway. I would have to guess that the majority of Quebecers are Catholic ~ which in this case would be the same as Protestants. We have so many immigrants here that I’m sure our religions are much more diverse than I can imagine.
Keeping in mind that in Quebec, the government controls alcohol sales, I’d venture to say that they “overlook” religious beliefs. (The casinos are open 24/7 ~ even on Christmas).
Not so much Puritans as Prohibitionists in general. Admittedly, they were for the most part Christians.
I can’t speak for Quebec but here in America there was enough force behind the Prohibition movement to constitutionally ban alcohol in the 20s. There are still laws on the books stemming from (before and?) after that period that still stand despite being sort of anachronisms. For example, there remain some counties here in Texas where liquor cannot be sold (However I believe there’s legislation in the works or going into practice to do something about it).
I don’t know squat about Canada so I’d have to venture a guess and say that there were people behind the prohibition movement once upon a time and these laws are simply residue of that.
Well, statistically speaking, most alcohol-related fights seem to occur late at night. If they ban late sales, it might cut down on the violence. That, at least, is the logic that some use.
There is probably the notion that if you make people sober up, they won’t show up to work in the morning loaded. Of course, that doesn’t mean you can’t stock up, but it would decrease the “we just started drinking, and never stopped” excuse.
That must be the most logical explanation. I think it’s for reducing probabilities of someone having the brilliant idea of buying more. Some people must be decided alcohol fans to stock enough for planning to drink all night.
Here in Mexico, we have the same rules (varying times from place to place). And it’s not because of Catholics. They just don’t want to endorse young people drinking in streets. So the ones who stock the “ammo” are the least.
For christian motives they can always say that they’re honoring Jesus Christ resembling the Last Supper.
In Oz we had the 6 o’clock swill - pubs would close at six, so you only had one hour after work finished to get as pissed as possible before the pub shut. The law was intended to make men go home to their families rather than hang at the pub until bedtime, but all it did was make men drink the same amount of beer in less time.
There are some suburbs here which are “dry” but they are a tiny minority. We are slowly doing away with the laws which restrict sensible drinking (like cafes not being able to sell alcohol, and some restaurants which can sell alcohol and others to which you can bring your own and some which have both licences). Put it down to the people who don’t like to see other people having fun (the same ones who declared kissing in public illegal, or oral sex in private [how do you enforce that one?]).
I heard an explanation for this once, I think it was on this message board. Someone said that Sunday sales were deemed blasphemous because churches were afraid people would blow their offering on booze.
