"package store"

[Joan Houston Hall]

George Goebel, of DARE, responded to Ms. Phillips as follows:
>>>Dear Ms Phillips,
>>>
>>>Presumably it is so called because it is licensed to sell alcoholic
>>beverages "in the original package," as opposed to by the drink. The
>>earliest example in our files is from 1937 in the _Baltimore Sun_. An
>>earlier term, _package house_, for which the _Dictionary of Americanisms_
>>has a single 1880 citation, _may_ refer to the same thing.  The
>>unsystematic evidence at our disposal does not point to any large-scale
>>regionality in the use of this term, though there is clearly considerable
>>variation on a small scale, perhaps depending at least partly on the
>>phrasing of local licensing laws. The abbreviated form _packie_, however,
>>seems to be a New Englandism, which might suggest that the full form is
>>more widely used there as well.
>>George H. Goebel
>>Dictionary of American Regional English
>>University of Wisconsin--Madison
>>6118 Helen C. White Hall
>>600 N. Park Street
>>Madison WI 53706
>>(608) 263-3811
>>