The Heritage Foundation Proposes Federal "Marriage Bootcamp" in New Policy Blueprint

[localroger]

22. Ah, good ol' blue laws

I remember there was an all out political knock-down drag-out in NOLA when I was a kid over blue laws. Louisiana had them, and they prohibited all kinds of work related stuff from being sold on Sunday, as well as alcohol. Except in NOLA, where alcohol was OK, because it was NOLA and the hospitality industry is that big here. But the city wasn't exempt from the hardware laws, which were driven largely by hardware stores that didn't want to compete with up-and-coming big boxes that could afford Sunday staffing. So drugstores like Katz & Besthoff and Walgreens, which were the shiznit before the big boxes like K-mart came, had to rope off some aisles and refuse to sell parts and tools on Sunday. Which meant that if your toilet exploded Sunday morning, you couldn't get the stuff to fix it, but you could get shitfaced drunk as you contemplated the stupidity of the situation. Even with that stupidity it took several years to get the hardware blue laws overturned, so now Louisiana is a mix of wet and dry parishes on Sunday but you can get the parts to fix your toilet all 7 days, everywhere in the state.