Strange Alcohol Laws

So, with the widecast net of brewers we have here, there's got to be some strange ones out there (i.e. the old Texas law about being able to drive with an open bottle(since repealed, no?))

One bizarre law I encountered was back in 85, in NH, up at Lake Winnepesauke (sp). I held a meeting there and we went to a bar afterwards. I had about 1/4 of a beer left and asked the bartender for another. Now this bartender was none too speedy in the first place. It took him 10 minutes just to take our orders and get our drinks and there were only 8 of us at the bar at the time so I figured I could give him a jump on things. He said I couldn't have another beer. Um, why? He said I couldn't order another until I finished my first. Considering how fast he served me the first time and his demeanor in telling me he wouldn't give me another until I finished, I told him that as fast as he moved, I could finish 2 beers by the time he got back. Needless to say, I wasn't his favorite customer after that.

So, are there any others out there?

you can't buy any kind of alcohol on Sunday in Georgia. The governor says it helps people with their time management skills.

todd_k said:

you can't buy any kind of alcohol on Sunday in Georgia. The governor says it helps people with their time management skills.

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Can you drink in a bar or restaurant on a Sunday? When I lived up in Boston, Massachusetts had the same law. Liquor stores were (and still are) closed on Sundays. You had/have alot of people making mad, late Saturday night dashes to the liquor stores when they realized there was no beer in the fridge for Sunday football.

We've been fortunate here in Washington State lately that a lot of the stupid liquor laws are being repealed. We still have state run liquor stores but a few will open on Sunday now. It used to be that a bar or brewpub that sold hard liquor, could not sell growlers of beer to go. (They were sure people would be walking out with growlers of Bourbon!) Luckily that law is no more as of a few months ago. Used to be you couldn't buy any beer over 10% outside a liquor store. They passed the big beer law a couple years ago and anow you can buy any beer no matter the strength at the grocery store. Still can't by alcohol after 2AM. Bars that serve hard liquor must put a railing around the bar area to keep minors out. All bars with outdoor seating must fence in the seating area.
All in all I think we have it pretty good here.

On the flip side, when I was in Tel Aviv on business, I went to a bar out on the beach and they didn't care where you went with your beer...no barriers keeping you in. They had wooden beach chairs set all over the place and even came around with a hookah (not my style though...I hate smoking). Germany is another great place too. You can go into McDonalds there and order a super size beer with your Big Mac. "Ein grossest bier, bitte!"

erbiumyag said:

Can you drink in a bar or restaurant on a Sunday? When I lived up in Boston, Massachusetts had the same law. Liquor stores were (and still are) closed on Sundays. You had/have alot of people making mad, late Saturday night dashes to the liquor stores when they realized there was no beer in the fridge for Sunday football.

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We JUST passed a law to drink alcohol in restaurants here in our county in GA a few months ago... and then only restaurants which make more than 50% of their revenue on food (meaning no bars).

erbiumyag said:

Can you drink in a bar or restaurant on a Sunday? When I lived up in Boston, Massachusetts had the same law. Liquor stores were (and still are) closed on Sundays. You had/have alot of people making mad, late Saturday night dashes to the liquor stores when they realized there was no beer in the fridge for Sunday football.

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I was talking to a co-worker from Providence RI and he said MA just recently started selling on Sundays.

It's illegal in Nebraska for a bartender OR customer to mix liquor and beer together in the same glass. They're trying to repeal it right now, but the anti-alcohol crowd is throwing a fit.

alemonkey said:

It's illegal in Nebraska for a bartender OR customer to mix liquor and beer together in the same glass. They're trying to repeal it right now, but the anti-alcohol crowd is throwing a fit.

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Couldn't they just bring you your carbomb in two glasses?

OR customer

oh yeah.

Liquor stores closed on sunday here too, can only buy 3.2% beer in supermarkets on any day (non-liquor stores too like costco, etc), and I have heard rumor that passengers in a vehicle can have open containers and drink, but only when the vehicle is stopped....not sure about the last one.

I think it is South Carolina (might be wrong there, but it's SOME state) where the bars are not allowed to keep fifths of hard liquor around. EVERYthing is served from those little ass bottles like you would get on an airplane. Those bottles are 1.5 oz or something odd like that, and you can't buy a fractional bottle. You can order a mixed drink, and the bartender will mix it out of those little bottles, and then give you any partially full bottles that were left over.

-walker

In Germany, you can pull off the Autobahn into a Tankstelle (gas station) on a Sunday morning and pick up a fifth of Jack Daniels and some great Hefeweizens.

In State College, PA they have record DUI arrest numbers now. They just lowered the acceptable BAC. Not that I condone getting plastered and driving but heck, it is literally to the point where you could probably drink 2 beers and be deemed 'incapable' of operating a motor vehicle safely. (Not sure what the limit is atm.) I say this, although not necessarily strange, is not a well thought out law imo. Oh yeah, plus they are in the process of adding a 20% tax on all alcohol purchased in bars/restaurants.

First time I came to Texas, 1987, you could drink and drive, you just couldn't be drunk. The next time I came, the law changed, the driver could not drink, but passengers could. Now I've been here since 2000 and it was 2000 or 2001 before they passed the no open container law. Pissed bubba off. Go to any Quick Stop about 4:30 - 5:00 pm and you'll see the folks on their way home buying a single in a paper bag. I'm sure they are saving it for when they get home.

erbiumyag said:

Can you drink in a bar or restaurant on a Sunday? When I lived up in Boston, Massachusetts had the same law. Liquor stores were (and still are) closed on Sundays. You had/have alot of people making mad, late Saturday night dashes to the liquor stores when they realized there was no beer in the fridge for Sunday football.

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I think there was also an exemption for MA liquor stores within 10 miles of the NH border. I assume that taxes were more important than the idea of keeping them closed on Sunday.

Kai

ColoradoXJ13 said:

Liquor stores closed on sunday here too, can only buy 3.2% beer in supermarkets on any day (non-liquor stores too like costco, etc), and I have heard rumor that passengers in a vehicle can have open containers and drink, but only when the vehicle is stopped....not sure about the last one.

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That sounds a lot like Utah (I lived there for 3 years). As you can imagine, they had some pretty extensive liquor laws. I'm surp[rised no one's bashed them yet. To name a few:
1) They had only state run liquor stores that were open at odd times and NEVER on Sunday. In fact, rumor had it that if the 1st or 15th fell on Friday, they'd close early so you couldn't get off work, cash your check, then go spend it on booze for a fri night bender.
2) I don't remember what the BAC levels were, but there were NO open containers allowed at all.
3) You could buy beer in the grocery stores, but on Sundays, the beer isle was literally BARACADED with those movable grocery racks and CHAINED up.
4) If you could find beer that was any more than 3.2%, it had to have a big hunter-orange sticker on it that read "Strong Beer." Imagine seeing rows and rows of Bud Light all labled "Strong Beer"
5) All of the places that normal people would have called a "bar" had to be called "private clubs" if their primary function was alcohol and not food. If forget what exactly qualified as a club vs. resturant, but it's probably something like the 50% of revenue rule. Anyway, you had to buy a membership to these clubs if you wanted to go in. Although some places offered 6-month or 1-year memberships, most were 2-week memberships fr something like 10 bucks. They basically acted like a cover charge but for establishments that, in other places, wouldn't require a cover.
6) Like someone else mentioned, your waitress or bartender could not serve your next beer until you'd finished the one in front of you. You could at least pre-order and just slam the last two swallows before the next one got there.
7) There was brief talk that Budweiser was not going to be allowed to sponsor the '02 Winter Olympics, but the locals (read: mormons) changed their tune when they realized how much money they were talking about. Consequently, my wife was able to take two of our favorite pics: 1) her and her friend drinking a Bud on the sidewalk under a "West Temple Ave" street sign and 2) a pic of the Temple with the glow of the Budweiser sign reflecting from the roof.

There may have been others, but these were the big ones. Is it any wonder that I started brewing while living there. It was basically out of necessity.

The good part about it for me was that, as a military member living on base, I could get beer, booze, and wine till 11 pm on sundays because the state laws didn't apply to the base shoppett (although they still had the obligatory "Strong Beer" lable). It always felt good to say "screw you" to the locals when I'd go there on Sunday.

Focus

The last one reminded me of a stint I did in Dallas. There was one town nearby (Addison?) that had all the liquor stores piled onto 1 street because the surrounding areas were dry. One night we went out in search of a different place to drink. Found a place that required you to be a member in order to drink. How much is membership? $2.50 and that includes 1 free beer. OK, how much are your beers? $2.50...

Wasn't very strange, but I spent a LOOONNNNNNNGGGG week installing an industrial laser system in Rutherfordton, NC. After 1 week of cafeteria style restaurants and no beer, we drove 2 hours to Spartanburg, SC just to find a Steak & Ale to have a decent meal & a beer. I'm sure the drive would have been shorter, but those darn small country roads...

Not sure about the facts on this, but someone once told me that in New Mexico, the Native Americans that live on one of the reservations can go into town, get good and liquored up, cause all sorts of trouble and as long as they aren't caught before they get back to reservation property, John Law couldn't touch them. Anyone know the truth on this one?

Kaiser said:

I think there was also an exemption for MA liquor stores within 10 miles of the NH border. I assume that taxes were more important than the idea of keeping them closed on Sunday.

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Liquor stores can be open 7 days a week in MA now. Probably about 6 years ago they allowed liquor stores near NH to open, as mentioned by Kai, but once that cat was let out of the bag it was bound to spread. I remember driving up to North Reading on Sundays to be able to get beer (about a half hour or more north) for a while. The logic was that towns near NH would lose business because of the more lax NH laws. However, the same logic applied once they allowed northern MA stores to open. MA towns that now bordered other Sunday-legal MA towns were at a disadvantage and after a few years the simply repealed most of the blue laws that made this stuff illegal in the first place.

Another interesting thing that was mentioned earlier in this thread:
It is, in fact, illegal in MA to have two drinks in front of you at one time. One drink per person, at all times. Now, this is hardly ever enforced but it is the law. I've sat at my local pub before with three in front of me for Chri'sake.

...Also it is technically illegal to leave a bar with booze....even if you are going to another area of the establishment. No drink to bathrooms - no drink from bars to restaurant tables. Again, it is hardly ever enforced but it is the law.

I've been places (Utah) when you can't be served a second drink until the first one is done, but ordering is a new one. With 8 people, that would be a major hassle. What happens if someone is an old light-weight? No one else gets a drink until I'm done?

In Milwaukee (and I think the rest of Wisconsin) You cant go to the store and buy any alchohol after 9PM, but you can go to bar bar and pay bar prices for it and walk out with six packs and 5ths. If you're going to have a party here make sure at 8:30PM you go on a booze run if you're running low

There are still weird laws in MA about selling beer in supermarkets. Some can, most don't. The Price Chopper in Pittsfield sells hard liquor, the Whole Foods in Hadley has a tremendous selection of beer and wine, but that's about it that I've seen in western MA. I thought I read something about companies being able to have up to three locations in the state where they would sell alcohol, but that doesn't make sense, but MA laws don't make sense, so...

Pumbaa said:

In Milwaukee (and I think the rest of Wisconsin) You cant go to the store and buy any alchohol after 9PM, but you can go to bar bar and pay bar prices for it and walk out with six packs and 5ths. If you're going to have a party here make sure at 8:30PM you go on a booze run if you're running low

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Still eh? Dumbest law I could ever think of. Party at my house; oops we ran out and missed cutoff. Everyone hop in your car and head off to the bars now! Or, the takeout from the bar.

Pretty much easy pickings in AZ to get booze. 10a - 1a 7 days a week from your grocery store of which most are open all night. And packing a gun is fine as long as it is visible.

Some Indian resevations are wet and some are dry.
In few, it is illegal to possess it.

Well...someone's got to represent the Dirty Capitol of the dirty-coast.

All across South Louisiana alcohol is avaliable for sale 24/7. Need a pint of whiskey or six-pack at 4 in the morn? Take a trip to the 24 hour gas-station.

In the bar sections of most towns (and in all of New Orleans) you can drink in public so long as the beverage isn't in a glass container. You will see in every bar in town plastic cups. These are "to-go cups". Heading to a new bar is easy as filling a to-go cup and hitting the streets.

At the 1st of this year they changed the open container laws for vehicles. Up until the end of '06 it was legal to drive with open containers so long as the number of drinks in the car were one less than the number of passengers. 4 people in a car could carry 3 open beverages with them (presumably the driver wouldn't be drinking... ha!).

That little bit of legislation birthed the drive-thru daquire industry. Order a potent cocktail like a happymeal.

Finally, out of pride, I must mention that Louisiana was the last state to raise the drinking age from 18 to 21. It was sometime in the early 90's.

Yeah... I love this place.

the_bird said:

There are still weird laws in MA about selling beer in supermarkets. Some can, most don't. The Price Chopper in Pittsfield sells hard liquor, the Whole Foods in Hadley has a tremendous selection of beer and wine, but that's about it that I've seen in western MA. I thought I read something about companies being able to have up to three locations in the state where they would sell alcohol, but that doesn't make sense, but MA laws don't make sense, so...

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PITTSFIELD! One of my clients is the Dan Duquette Sports Academy in Hinsdale.

In Puerto Rico you can have an open container in the car, except driver, and anywhere on foot. We had good fun hiking through the rainforest with beer in each hand.

Hopfan said:

PITTSFIELD! One of my clients is the Dan Duquette Sports Academy in Hinsdale.

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Really? Does that mean that you have to come out this way on occassion?

Illinois laws are only slightly annoying. You can't buy alcohol on Sunday before noon.

the_bird said:

Really? Does that mean that you have to come out this way on occassion?

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Hopingn to come up in the Spring. I'll let you know and bring up some brews for you to try. I need a better opinion than my neighbors. He'll drink anything alcohol

Hopfan said:

Hopingn to come up in the Spring. I'll let you know and bring up some brews for you to try. I need a better opinion than my neighbors. He'll drink anything alcohol

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If it's in March, there's word of a big get-together outside of Boston...

(figure the more I talk about it, the less the chance that Kai can back out of this )

In the late 80s, my buddy Jim and I were playing golf at a PA golf course. At the turn, while Jim was buying snacks, I detoured to the car to get a couple Coors Lights out of the cooler. I arrived at the 10th tee first and put Jims beer on the tee marker while I dug into mine. There was a back-up on #10, and soon the 4some behind us drove over to the tee. One of the guys asked where I had gotten the beers and I told him from the car. He said he was on the board of directors of the golf club and they had an exclusive contract with Budweiser not to serve ANY non-Bud product on the course. He said having a Coors was a violation of the club rules. I asked if he was willing to look the other way just this once since I was visiting from maryland and he said ok but not to let it happen again. Good lord.

We vacation almost every yr on the outer banks of NC and beer and wine are sold freely at any grocery store. One yr we went to the Gatlinburg area of TN. The grocery stores in Pigeon Forge will sell ya all the beer you want , but to get wine or spirits, we needed to drive nearly 10 miles to Gatlinburg. FYI, as SOON as you cross the city limits of gatlinburg, the liquor store is the FIRST store on the left!

the_bird said:

If it's in March, there's word of a big get-together outside of Boston...

(figure the more I talk about it, the less the chance that Kai can back out of this )

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Excellent! I get back from Myrtle Beach on March 1 so I'll keep a lookout for that one.

Hopfan said:

Excellent! I get back from Myrtle Beach on March 1 so I'll keep a lookout for that one.

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Keep an eye on the "New England Brew Session and Yankee Ingeniuty" thread. That'll be awesome if you can make it up. Boston's supposed to be coming up (his Dad lives in the area), I imagine most of the NE crew will be there. I'll make sure Evanmars (new guy) makes it out.

Kai, we're going to take over your house, if you like it or not!

the_bird said:

(figure the more I talk about it, the less the chance that Kai can back out of this )

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If Kai sports, count me in. So let's keep mentioning it.

rOland said:

Well...someone's got to represent the Dirty Capitol of the dirty-coast.

All across South Louisiana alcohol is avaliable for sale 24/7. Need a pint of whiskey or six-pack at 4 in the morn? Take a trip to the 24 hour gas-station.

In the bar sections of most towns (and in all of New Orleans) you can drink in public so long as the beverage isn't in a glass container. You will see in every bar in town plastic cups. These are "to-go cups". Heading to a new bar is easy as filling a to-go cup and hitting the streets.

At the 1st of this year they changed the open container laws for vehicles. Up until the end of '06 it was legal to drive with open containers so long as the number of drinks in the car were one less than the number of passengers. 4 people in a car could carry 3 open beverages with them (presumably the driver wouldn't be drinking... ha!).

That little bit of legislation birthed the drive-thru daquire industry. Order a potent cocktail like a happymeal.

Finally, out of pride, I must mention that Louisiana was the last state to raise the drinking age from 18 to 21. It was sometime in the early 90's.

Yeah... I love this place.

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Having lived in Utah and now residing in NC - still squarely in the bible belt - That brings a tear to my drunk, bleary eyes. God bless y'all in Louisiana.