In Indiana, you cannot buy cold beer at a convenience store.

[Tobin S.]

You can buy warm beer there, but it is illegal to sell refrigerated beer at a gas station. However, you can buy cold wine at a gas station.

All liquor stores have to be closed on Sundays, and I'm not sure if it's a law or not, but all the liquor stores here close by 11PM.

You can buy hard liquor in establishments that sell groceries and in pharmacies.

Everclear, 190 proof grain alcohol, is legal here and you can get it at any place that sells liquor if they stock it. It's basically legal moonshine.

[hollysmom]

1. In NJ you can only buy beer at a liquor store or a bar. so eh. different states have different rules

you adapt. If they sold beer in a grocery store, I would probably drink beer more, I Just don't feel like driving to the liquor store when I want one. So I have some lemonade or iced tea instead and save gas.

[Tobin S.]

2. In think a lot of places in the northeast are like that.

Indiana is fairly liberal with its alcohol policies aside from that liquor stores closed on Sundays thing. I used to live in Ohio. You could buy beer, wine, and diluted liquor almost anywhere there, but if you wanted hard liquor you had to go to a state store.

[littlebit]

3. In Texas

you can by beer just about anywhere. The hard stuff you have to buy at the liquor store. Most of them have a drive thru so you don't have to get out of the car if you don't want to.

[47of74]

19. We used to have a liquor store like that where I live in Iowa.

You could go through a drive in the back and they'd load you up with whatever you wanted.

The store closed a number of years ago and it's a furniture store now.

[3catwoman3]

4. When I was stationed at Lackland AFB...

Last edited Sat Jun 25, 2016, 12:13 PM - Edit history (1)

...in San Antonio in the mid-70s, the state still had the Sunday blue laws. Entire aisles of the grocery stores would be roped off. You could buy food, but not a pan to cook it in, dish soap to wash the pan with, nor dishtowels to dry it with. I found it very odd.

[Major Nikon]

8. It's still the same way today

[3catwoman3]

10. Having grown up in...

...western upstate NY, that was not the only thing I found odd about my time in Texas.

[littlebit]

22. TX did away with the blue laws

years ago.

[Major Nikon]

24. Then someone should probably tell the Texas Alcoholic Beverage Commission

...along with everyone who sells alcohol in the state.

What are the legal hours of sale/service of alcoholic beverages?

ON-PREMISE LICENSE OR PERMIT (E.G. BAR OR RESTAURANT)

Monday-Friday: 7am-midnight
Saturday: 7am-1am (Sunday morning)
Sunday: Noon to midnight. (10am-noon only in conjunction with the service of food)
If the establishment is in a city or county legal for late hours, and they have a late hours permit, they can sell alcohol for on-premise consumption until 2am any night of the week.
OFF-PREMISE BEER/WINE LICENSE OR PERMIT (E.G. CONVENIENCE STORE OR GROCERY STORE)

Monday-Friday: 7am-midnight
Saturday: 7am-1am (Sunday morning)
Sunday: noon to midnight
A wine only package store that holds a beer license may not sell wine containing more than 17 percent alcohol by volume on a Sunday or after 10pm on any day.
A wine only package store that does NOT hold a beer license must have the same hours of sale as a package store.
PACKAGE STORE / LIQUOR STORE

Monday-Saturday: 10am-9pm
Closed on Sunday, Thanksgiving Day, Christmas Day, New Year's Day.
If Christmas Day or New Year's Day falls on a Sunday, closed the following Monday.

http://www.tabc.state.tx.us/faq/general.asp#hours

[littlebit]

25. You can buy alcohol on Sundays

as well as anything else you want to. Under the blue laws you couldn't buy anything except food. Those laws haven't existed in over 20 years.

[Major Nikon]

26. So are you really claiming what I just posted isn't the law in Texas?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_laws_in_the_United_States#Texas

[littlebit]

27. I didn't claim that

I typed that TX did away with the blue laws. Which was what I originally replied to. You are talking about something else. The liquor stores in TX are close on Sunday but you can still buy beer and wine at the grocery store on Sundays after noon.

[Major Nikon]

29. You did claim exactly that and it just isn't that hard to prove...

You can buy alcohol on Sundays as well as anything else you want to.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1018&pid=877754

Here's what you now claim after being proved wrong...

The liquor stores in TX are close on Sunday

http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1018&pid=877767

So whatever you are claiming seems to be a bit of a mystery because you can't even manage to agree with yourself.

The legal restriction on the sale of anything, and especially alcohol on a Sabbath is exactly what blue laws are. I've already proved this. If you want to talk about something else, then by all means go right ahead, but you aren't talking about what I and the poster I replied to are talking about which is exactly what wiki and every other authoritative reference calls blue laws.

[littlebit]

30. Ok I responded to a post

where someone was talking about the old blue laws where you couldn't buy anything but food on sundays. You're reply to that post was that those laws were still in place. They are not. That is what I responded to. I was talking about clothing and household goods. You were talking about alcohol. Somewhere along the line signals got crossed. If you would like to continue to argue I am sure we could. I will be up.most of the night if you are that bored.

[Major Nikon]

31. It is correct that some blue laws no longer exist

I get that my post was somewhat ambiguous, but your response was that all blue laws in Texas no longer exist which isn't the case. Many of them are still in place and are exactly the same as they always were unlike most other states which actually have done away with blue laws completely.

[Rhiannon12866]

5. State laws regarding alcohol are bizarre and confusing

Here in New York, you can buy beer at a grocery store or gas station, but wine and liquor are only sold at a liquor store. But when my mother tried to buy a bottle of wine in a liquor store in Vermont, the closest thing she could find was sherry.

When I was looking for shampoo in a drug store in NC, I stumbled on the wine section. They have "package stores" for liquor, used to sometimes buy vodka for my grandmother, but I never did figure out what hours they kept.

And I once picked up a bottle of wine at a grocery store when I was in California. But it was a busy night and the lines were long, so it was just after midnight when I finally reached the register and they wouldn't let me buy in because it apparently becomes illegal to buy alcohol after midnight there.

[Aristus]

6. Indiana = Mississippi without the Spanish moss.

n/t

[Night Watchman]

40. That is SO True!

[mainer]

7. In NY, you can't buy wine at the grocery store. Only at designated liquor stores.

Makes it very inconvenient when you go shopping for groceries to cook dinner and you have to go to a separate place to buy wine.

[baldguy]

33. Here in Buffalo, Wegmans runs a liquor store.

[CanSocDem]

9. What shocked me...

...when I first started travelling to the USA was that booze could be purchased anywhere. Gas stations, corner stores, big grocery stores, truck stops, not to mention an average of 3 bars/block in most cities.

I was shocked because the social democracy I grew up in, owned all the retail liquor stores with special dispensation given to the 'hospitality industry' who could serve liquor with their food and sell beer to go from their lounges.

This may seem harsh to some but the rational behind limiting access was the larger principle of Public Health. Alcohol related disease ate up a good chunk of healthcare money so it made sense to steer people away from booze as much as possible.

Now that the healthy young studs, that we raised on public health and minimal exposure to an unfettered free-market, are in control of the government they are on the verge of privatizing the liquor business.

These idiots drive into Montana, buy cheap beer and vodka, and wail incessantly that they should be able to get the same here.

.

[laundry_queen]

38. Well

I'm in Canada but where I am liquor stores are privatized, and I remember the before and after...and I much prefer the after. Despite being quite left wing, I like how the privatized stores give small craft beer makers and small vineyards a chance to sell their products. I like not panicking on Saturday at 5pm because I only have an hour left to buy wine for family dinner the next night. Then ending up in a ridiculously long line up because everyone else in town flocked to the only store in town with the same idea in mind...Also, here the government has a company that still acts as 3rd party/main supplier and sets the prices, so they still make the money, they just don't run the stores. Full-disclosure - I work for a company that sells liquor in the U.S. and Canada and nothing in Canada comes close to the unfettered free-market in the U.S. with regards to alcohol. It's a HUGE difference.

What really shocked me about the U.S. is that you can walk down the street in most states with booze in your hand. That is illegal in Canada. LOL, I think just about everyone I know found out the hard way you CANNOT take your drink to the next campground over to visit your friend, you WILL get a ticket. To see people in the U.S. walking down the street with a drink was strange, to say the least.

[lunatica]

11. When I lived in Texas in the early 1980s they had blue laws

Laws that on Sundays you couldn't buy quite a few things. Of course alcohol of any kind was banned but also things like stockings (pantyhose) and many other strange things. Entire sections of supermarkets were cordoned off where you couldn't purchase anything in those areas. As an outsider I thought that was one of the more bizarre things I had encountered in the US.

I grew up in Mexico, so coming to live in the US in my 20s was a bit of a culture shock. Especially in Texas. These blue laws are all about religion which is why they were enforced on Sundays. I see that these laws are still enforced from a post upthread.

[mikeargo]

12. Pantyhose?

WTF?

[lunatica]

13. That's what I said when I needed to replace the ones I had with runs in them

Way bizarre!

[TexasBushwhacker]

16. My guess is that no clothing could be sold on Sundays

Most department stores were closed.

[Recursion]

21. I still have a "Let's bust the blue laws!" button from back then (nt)

[Purrfessor]

14. That's an inconvenience!!

[Zorro]

15. Indiana seems to have always been a bit weird

I spent some formative years living there in the early 60s. Blue laws that shut down pretty much all businesses on Sunday were prevalent, and the Indianapolis Star -- the major paper in the state -- railed against zip codes as government overreach.

[AwakeAtLast]

17. I was born and raised in IL

but moved to IN during my college years. I thought every state had liquor stores with drive-thru windows. Found out that wasn't true when I moved here.

The one thing I do like is that IN does not sell liquor on Election Day.

[47of74]

18. Yep

Where my uncle lives near Pineville, Louisiana they didn't sell alcoholic beverages for a very long time. It was only since 2014 that they started allowing alcoholic beverages in restaurants, but I think they still don't allow people to buy them in stores. So of course to buy beer or other intoxicating beverages my uncle's family has to go into Alexandria.

And if you go up to Madison you can't buy beer or other liquors in stores after 9pm. I found that out when I stopped on my way home from a show to pick up some Spotted Cow in Madison. I wound up waiting until I got to Belmont and bought some there instead.

[Recursion]

20. My hometown in Mississippi was like that until recently

Actually it was really weird:

1. The town was wet, and you could possess hard liquor, but stores couldn't sell it, and beer couldn't be sold cold
2. The community college was completely dry (ha!)
3. The county was wet, but only for hard liquor: stores couldn't sell beer or wine and you couldn't have it

So, in fact, I was at parties out in the county when the deputy would show up and say "you can keep the whiskey, but you have to pour out the beer".

[doc03]

23. Can't in Pennsylvania either n/t

[Kali]

28. that doesn't sound very convenient to me!

[RedRocco]

32. Here in South Carolina

liquor stores cant sell anything other than liquor, and only between 7 am and 7 pm. Also, the building is only allowed 1 entrance/exit and no opening windows.

[RobinA]

34. Here in PA

you don't get any beer at a convenience store. Beer comes from the beer distributor and liquor, including wine, comes from the liquor store. There is some convoluted mess about getting a 6 pack at a bar depending on the day of the week, or time of day, or something, but only alcoholics and college students understand that one.

First time I ever saw liquor at a convenience store was in Wisconsin on an Indian reservation I happened to be traveling through. Everclear by the register for that last minute impulse buy. Gee, think this might be a problem?

Judging by the trash discarded from car windows on my somewhat rural road, a scary number of drivers out there are drinking beer or liquor straight from the bottle while driving down the road. Booze bottles far outnumber soda bottles and McDonalds wrappers, which we have aplenty, along our little road.

[CanSocDem]

36. "...a problem?"

Yeh I think so.

Like the ephedrine pills that used to be at the truck stop registers. Makes you wonder why there are ANY laws worth observing.

Speaking of "trash", more evidence I have noticed, of illicit drinking in the city, were all the large size M&M bags, flattened in the gutter, with empty beer cans inside....



.

[RobinA]

39. As a Long Time

walker and general observer, I have noticed that trash is very instructive. Both in the gutter and in trash cans set out at the end of driveways. You don't have to go rooting around, just a glance as you walk by. I had no idea how much people drank until I started walking through the neighborhood near where I worked and saw the amount of booze containers people throw away at one time. Yowza!

[betsuni]

35. Here in Japan, it is a booze paradise.

One can buy booze at a convenience store or 24-hour supermarket even in the middle of the night and walk down the street guzzling it and nobody would think anything of it.

[greendog]

37. Utah is the craziest.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alcohol_laws_of_Utah

[Yonnie3]

42. I worked in Provo, Utah several times in the 90s

and never really understood them.

I had two drinks in my hotel dining room while waiting on a vendor's technician to meet me for dinner. When he showed up they refused to serve me a third since I had two within an hour. I said "bring me another when the hour is up." The said that they couldn't serve any more for the night.

You had to order food to have drinks. The 50 cent peanut bowl sold a lot.

The location of the liquor store was not easy to find. The only sign for the store was some tiny lettering on the door.

On Sunday at the hotel, I could not get a draft beer, but could get a cocktail or a bottle of beer.

Only weak beer (3.2% ??) was available in grocery or convenience stores.

Private clubs were the only way to have alcohol in a relaxed setting.

I turned down a transfer and promotion to Provo mainly because I would have been bored to tears. It's good that I turned it down as they closed the factory in four years.

[sharp_stick]

41. I moved to CT in 2003

and was ecstatic to see beer in grocery stores. The first Sunday I thought a six pack would be good so off I go to Stop n Shop only to be greeted by a curtain covering the beer. Turns out you could only get beer or any booze until 8 PM and not at all on Sunday.

It's a little better now. Booze sales until 9 PM and until 5 PM on Sunday.

I'll never forget the disappointment I felt when I saw the impenetrable barrier of curtain that first Sunday.

[madinmaryland]

43. I lived in Fairfield County until 2004 and Sunday's often included

A trek over to New York State for beer. There was always a place right across the state line and it would be packed with cars having CT plates!!

[Yonnie3]

44. I lived in a rural Virginia county and our Sundays often involved a trip to "Tijauna", which is what

we called the store just across the county line. It was hard to get in their small parking area on a summer Sunday afternoon.

[patricia92243]

45. NC discretely has it liquor stores listed as ABC stores. I moved to Arkansas and they had these

huge signs with arrows, neon, etc. adverting it. I thought they were a state full of alcoholics -lol.

Each state is very different in how they handle alcohol.