Blue laws

[Laurence Horn]

At 4:01 PM -0500 1/13/03, Fred Shapiro wrote:
>On Wed, 11 Dec 2002, Michael Quinion wrote:
>
>>  The following appears on a web site devoted to the rebuttal of
>>  hoaxes (www.museumofhoaxes.com/bluelaws.html): "The term 'Blue
>>  Laws' describes laws that regulate public morality. The phrase was
>>  first used in an anonymous pamphlet published in 1762 titled 'The
>>  Real Advantages Which Ministers and People May Enjoy, Especially in
>>  the Colonies, by Conforming to the Church of England'". This - if
>>  correct - predates the usual first citation in the Reverend Samuel
>>  Peters' work of 1782 entitled "A General History of Connecticut".
>
>I looked at the book in question, and it does indeed antedate the OED's
>1781 first use:
>
>1762 Noah Welles _The Real Advantages Which Ministers and People May Enjoy
>Especially in the Colonies, by Conforming to the Church of England_ 29  I
>have heard that some of them [polite gentlemen] begin to be ashamed of
>their blue laws at _New-Haven_.
>
So even if we can't claim the first pizza (from Pepe's) or hamburgers
(from Louis' Lunch), we still have priority on (hot) dogs, frisbees,
and blue laws.  (I think there might have been other firsts that
Barry found in the Yale Record, but I can't recall them at the
moment.)

We still can't buy beer (or anything else alcoholic) on Sundays, and
the supermarkets put discreet sheets to shield the beer from sight so
we can't even THINK about buying (or presumably drinking) it.  (No
alcohol sales after 8p.m. in New Haven, or the rest of Connecticut,
either, but I'm not sure whether that counts as a blue law--for me,
the term is just applicable to Sunday laws.)  Other
(non-alcohol-related) blue laws are no longer in effect, and bars are
open on Sunday (especially during football season).

Larry

P.S.  I recall that decades ago stores larger than some specified
size were not allowed to be open on Sundays, and that these "blue
laws" were kept in force by the smaller mom-and-pop stores that could
stay in business by virtue [no pun intended] of these blue laws, but
I guess eventually the larger stores threw their economic muscle
around and had the regulations repealed, here and in other eastern
states.
--