Blue Laws

Discussion in 'Politics & Government' started by Yvonne Smith, Mar 7, 2020.

  1. Yvonne Smith

    Yvonne Smith Senior Staff
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    Depending on where you live, you may or may not have ever heard of something called a Blue Law before. I certainly never heard of it before I moved down to Alabama.
    Alabama is kind of an odd state, anyway.
    We have the NASA headquarters here, and the Redstone Arsenal, which has upper level military, and we have the Space and Rocket Center here.
    At the same time as all of this progressiveness, Alabama is still back in the Dark Ages in some respects.

    You can not buy a lottery ticket in Alabama, and they are not even considering the possibility of allowing a lottery here. People drive to one of the surrounding states and spend their money there to buy lottery tickets, so why they can’t at least have it benefit our own state, is a mystery to me.
    But that is Alabama.

    Now, a Blue Law , is kind of a hold over from back in the colonial days, or even before, and what it is , is a government restriction on what you can buy and when.
    I am talking about legal commodities here, things that sit on the store shelves every single day, not something that is against the law to buy or own.
    What it does, in our case, is stops any sale of alcoholic beverages on Sunday , from Midnight Saturday night, until Monday morning.
    Even more confusing, it is decided upon from county to county, so if you live close to a county line, all you might have to do is drive a block away, and then you can buy beer.

    Imagine if you went to Walmart to buy clothes, and the clerk said, “I am sorry, we don’t sell underwear on Wednesdays because it is against the law”.
    To my mind, this is unnecessary control and regulation by the government, when you tell someone that they can’t purchase a legal item any time they want to buy it.
    It really does not save any lives probably, either, because more drunk drivers are apt to be out on the road driving, because they had to go to the next town to have their Sunday beers, than if they just could stop at the convenience store and bring it home to drink.
     
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  2. Ed Wilson

    Ed Wilson Veteran Member
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    Pennsylvania was plagued by blue laws for many years but is slowly getting rid of or modifying them over time. Stores were to close on Sundays, but drug stores could open. An enterprising individual opened a drug store as a front door business, but as you proceeded towards the back there was an entrance to a general merchandise store carrying every thing, so he skirted the law and was allowed to do so.

    Bars had to close on Sundays but the American Legions and VFWs could remain open, which then created social memberships so non-veterans could have their adult beverages.

    PA saw potential revenue leaving the state and going to New Jersey casinos to gamble, so now gambling has been legalized but of course the state gets a cut. Same thing with the lottery and lately it's been marijuana.

    Hunting is disallowed on Sundays but there is an effort to open up the restrictions on a limited basis.
     
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  3. Nancy Hart

    Nancy Hart Veteran Member
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    My first encounter with serious Blue Laws, was when I moved from the city in Ohio, to Raleigh, North Carolina, in 1970.

    Arrived on Friday. Plan was to get the apartment set up over the weekend. By Sunday I still needed a few things. I remember specifically, a dish pan and drainer. The only store open was a large drug store, similar to those today that carry everything.

    Took the stuff up to the counter and the girl said, you can't buy that today. You can only buy medicine and prescription drugs on Sunday.

    They also had Brown Bag laws. They couldn't sell liquor by the drink, but in some restaurants, you could bring your own, if you kept it covered (as in a brown paper bad). They provided the glasses. It made me homesick. lol
     
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  4. Sheldon Scott

    Sheldon Scott Supreme Member
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    yeah, we had blue laws in Arkansas. I think about half the counties even now are dry. I'll check on that

    I was close:

    .Arkansas. Arkansas has 75 counties, 34 of which are dry, and all alcohol sales are forbidden statewide on Sundays (Packaged beer and wine sales are currently allowed on Sundays in the cities of Altus, Eureka Springs, Springdale and Tontitown
     
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  5. Lois Winters

    Lois Winters Veteran Member
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    When I was stationed in Montgomery, AL, we would drive to GA. to get our booze and then someone put us wise to a sleazy diner in some backwater town where we could pick up some hootch. That was a very dangerous proposition which I will not go into here, but old, (or, I should say young and naive), Lois never let a small thing like that deter her. I drove out with a bunch of pilots who were afraid to approach said establishment, so I waltzed in, made my purchase and off we went. Sigh. The good old days.
     
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  6. Beth Gallagher

    Beth Gallagher Supreme Member
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    Since I was raised in the south, I have always known of blue laws. I assumed the laws were more around religious reasons; to promote a "day of rest" being in the Bible Belt. For many years, stores in the south were simply closed on Sunday.

    I think the laws around the sale of alcohol are still restricted particularly on Sunday.
     
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    Last edited: Mar 7, 2020
  7. Hedi Mitchell

    Hedi Mitchell Supreme Member
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    Yes was originally a religious thing. Supposedly restricting the buying of certain items on Sunday would keep us all from going to hell.lolol.
     
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  8. Ken Anderson

    Ken Anderson Senior Staff
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    They got rid of them shortly after I moved there, but Texas was crazy with Blue Laws when I moved there. Entire sections of the grocery store would be closed off on Sundays, and there was nutty stuff like being able to buy hammers but not nails, or vice versa. I don't think we have any in Maine.

    I am not at all opposed to religion but, to my thinking, this is something that should be up to the individual. If I think that it's a sin to buy nails on a Sunday, then I shouldn't go to the hardware store looking for nails. But if I don't see anything wrong with buying nails or even putting an addition on my house on a Sunday, then there shouldn't be a law prohibiting me from buying what I need.

    As for alcohol, I often think they shouldn't have repealed Prohibition, but it's not a pressing issue for me.
     
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  9. Mary Robi

    Mary Robi Veteran Member
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    I'm not sure about all of Virginia, but the county I lived in in 1968 & 69 has some loopy laws. No liquor-by-the-drink, but a lot of places became "bottle clubs" where you paid $1 for a "lifetime membership" and then you could bring your own bottle and just buy set-ups. Of course, there was legal free-flowing beer and wine for those over 21 and 3.2 beer for the 18-year-olds. One of the funniest laws was that women couldn't sit at a bar, only at a table or booth.

    As far as Alabama laws, the famous (or infamous, depending on your feelings about it) Flora-bama Lounge straddles the Alabama-Florida state line on the beach. I haven't been in years, but you were able to get fireworks at one end of the bar and lottery tickets at the other end.
     
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  10. Ken Anderson

    Ken Anderson Senior Staff
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    If a state wants to ban the sale of alcohol on Sundays, I don't have a problem with that. They can ban it for the rest of the days too, and I'd be fine. I hate blue laws that are overly complicated so it's hard to know what you can or can't buy on a Sunday.
     
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  11. Yvonne Smith

    Yvonne Smith Senior Staff
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    Prohibition caused more trouble than it helped, and then they were selling homemade liquor that was much more unsafe than the regular kind made legally. I don’t think that banning liquor sales does any good either.
    If something is sold legally, and the store is open, the government should not be able to tell people what they can and cannot purchase. It is not going to stop people who want to drink on Sunday, anyway, because they can just stock up on Saturday, or whenever it is legal to buy alcoholic beverages.
    To me, this is no different than Bloomberg saying that large soda drinks could not be sold. People could still buy as much as they wanted to drink, but what it did was end up hurting the salesperson who was trying to make a living with a little sandwich stand.
     
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  12. Ken Anderson

    Ken Anderson Senior Staff
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    The percentage of the population who drank and the levels of alcoholism went down considerably during Prohibition, but I'm not suggesting that. All that I said was that it wouldn't bother me if was prohibited. All laws are established either to maintain order, to raise revenue, or to legislate morality, so if a city, county, or state wanted to make it illegal to buy alcohol on Sunday, I don't see any reasonable reason for them not to be able to do that. But the topic here is about Blue laws. I'd rather not have any and, as I have said, those who believe that it is wrong to buy alcohol or nails on Sunday should refrain from doing that, and not bother the rest of us. But if there was a demand for a Blue law, then at least make it uncomplicated so that people know what they can or cannot buy on a Sunday.
     
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  13. Joseph Carl

    Joseph Carl Very Well-Known Member
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    Beth and Gloria, you're right with your defining purpose for Blue Laws. They were established to promote America's traditional Christian values.

    I understand that most people in our secularized society today oppose any concept of the government sanctioning, yet alone promoting, Christianity. But, this is exactly what our nation's founding fathers and successive government officials intended and did up through the mid 20th century. And even today, our laws continue to reflect the Judeo-Christian principles that they were derived from. Realize, that our founding fathers stated repeatedly that the security and success of our nation depended foremost upon God's providence and that it was the government and citizenry's responsibility to show reverence to the Almighty and to promote Christian virtue.

    The Blue Laws allowed a local community (county) to decide how Christian-like or secular they wanted to be, thus allowing for areas of diverging religious values. This used to be the state model too, but the 1947 Supreme Court Case Everson v. Board of Education ruling changed everything. Since then, the Supreme Court assumed authority over the states in all religious matters, and the result has been a nationwide secularization of the country.

    For me, it's tragic that the federal government's role and power has gone far beyond the constitutional limits and founding fathers' intentions. Its intervention in state religious matters has had profound effects on the cultural and moral values of the nation - with abortion being a prime example. While I don't expect everyone to like or support Blue Laws that promote Christian values, I think it's reasonable and preferable that such matters be decided by counties or states rather than the federal government. I'm certain that the great founding fathers of our country would agree.
     
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  14. Bobby Cole

    Bobby Cole Supreme Member
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    Orleans and Jefferson Parishes (New Orleans) has two blue laws on the books but I do not know if they are still enforced but as of about 35 years ago when I left, they were.
    1.. Ya can’t sell men’s clothes on Sundays.
    2. If a person has a 24hr drinking establishment, it has to close for at least 1 hour a day for cleaning.
     
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  15. Teresa Levitt

    Teresa Levitt Veteran Member
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    blue laws never affected me
     
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