Wisconsin state law says that beer can be sold until midnight. However, many local municipalities have enacted ordinances prohibiting beer sales after 9p.m… So if you get home late from work and don’t have a brew in the fridge, you’re screwed. So I called my Alderman and asked him why we had this ordinance which is contrary to state law, and why he voted for it. His answer to both was “to fight drunk driving”. But the dink wouldn’t explain any further than that. Hey, I can sit in a bar until 2:30a.m. and drink till I’m thirsty again, then I have to get home somehow right? But if I buy beer in a convenience store, I’m going to take it home and drink it. Can someone explain to me how is that more dangerous than the 2a.m. bar-to-home gauntlet so many others dare to take?
The Aldermen were drunk when they voted for the law. There is no other explanation. This will teach you to live in Winsconsin!
We’re all overweight, constant complaining, fried cheese and bratwurst eating, drunk, mostly German, bowlers.
Didn’t you ever watch Lavern & Shirley?
Hey, that’s not fair, pkbites.
I live in Wisconsin, too, and except for the constant complaining, fried cheese, bratwurst, drunk, German, and bowling parts, I don’t fit the profile.
Hey you two be careful before this degerates into a tailgating session.
How recent is this legislation in your parts pk?
We have had it in Stevens Point for quite awhile and I remember living in Eau Claire and not being able to buy beer until noon on Sunday. While my first reaction is to claim Blue Laws that may not be entirely accurate. The Tavern League probably has a hand in there somewhere because you can buy from the bars until midnight.
Hmmmm… Let’s see… Who stands to benefit the most from such an ordinance… The bars? Yup… that’s it… the bars.
So, either owning bars is really popular among politicians around your parts, or the bars have formed some type of PAC group (yes, I know… redundant) and paid the politicians… er, I mean… donated to the politicians’ campaign funds. And, to end off by using just one more ellipsis…
Don’t complain about the 9:00pm thing, it’s worse in Connecticut. Here we can’t buy after 8:00 pm and not at all on Sundays.
I grew up in 'Sconsin and lived there until last summer. I used to complain about the 9:00 thing, until I got here. Now I bitch about the 8:00/No Sundays rules.
Sorry to say it guys, but you still have a good thing going there…Ahh, Brats and Fried Cheese and Cream Puffs and …
You guys voted them in, you can vote them out.
I had a dispute with one of our city leaders over something some time back and he was reluctant to explain his position in detail. So I pointed out to him that we put him in office and we could take him out. He didn’t like that. The next public meeting, someone else got up to speak about the action – and I did not know him – and after getting the run around from the same member, said the same thing that I did, in that we voted ‘them’ in and we could vote them out.
The measure was changed a couple of weeks later.
(The item in question was a city resolution to make it illegal for two unrelated and unmarried people of either sex to cohabitate within the city limits. That would promptly affect a couple of thousand young people who could not afford the stiff rents alone. Local realitors and apartment complex owners were behind it and it all started with one wealthy woman, who did not like 3 or 4 people sharing rent in houses and - like young people will do, having fun.)
PRISM02
The problem is the law has been in effect for some time. Dates are being researched as we speak…or type…or whatever.
Anyway, in my case it has always been that way and I suspect other people older than me have put up with this for a longer time. We would be fighting the old…‘Well, it has always been that way’ mentality on this issue.
We recently went through a bit of an uproar in town when a City Councilman got a hard on over preventing some of the local establishment from allowing drinking outside in the summer. This affected volleyball, horseshoes and various other summer leagues. Mysteriously it didn’t affect the city run softball diamonds. After much ado and foot dragging the ban was dismissed providing the establishment had someone on staff overseeing the outdoor area. A fair compromise in this case but the original idea was ludicrous and made for some interesting City Council meetings. I think that the rest of the Council felt the weight of the voting public and thought better of angering them.
They usually do, being basically power mad and greedy people who enjoy slinging their weight around and giving orders. You have to get the majority of the people behind you and that can take a struggle because most (a) don’t care or (b) figure that the ruling body will do as they choose anyhow.
Here, our available land is being eaten up by upper class housing developments, which are being rapidly built no matter the protests but no viable industry is coming into the area. One lady, irritated at an attempt to block a small development from going in next door to her – she had moved 'way out in the rural area to be alone and the company started building right next door – walked out into their property and found turtle nests. The protected Gopher turtles!
It seems no one had bothered to check the land for protected species. (Something they are supposed to do.) She reported it and the EPA came and made a close survey – not called by the city leaders but by her – and found many more nests. The development did not go in.
I lived in Madison for a while and faced the same problem. The answer I’ve always heard has been stated. Pressure from the Bar owners, so they get more business.
I live in CT also, and am subject to the 8:00 p.m./no Sundays rule as well. What I’ve always heard (and I have no idea how I might look something like this up, short of taking a trip down to Town Hall and looking through the minutes of past Town Council meetings), is that it wasn’t the bar owners who lobbied to keep the law, but the liquor store owners. They liked having their nights and Sundays off, and if the law were repealed, they’d inevitably have to keep their stores open later to stay competitive.