FW: Blue laws

[Frank Abate]

Adding to the observations of Fred S and Larry H on Connecticut and blue
laws, let me add mine on the same topic.  I'm a Connecticut resident for
over 20 years now (longer than I have lived in any other state, except
Ohio).  Some of this may seem off-topic, but I do use a lot of the local
lingo in it, so it really is not.

The package stores (or "packies" as they are called informally, esp. by
those who use them most often) legally can open at 8 am here, and MUST close
at 8 pm.  Now I ask you -- who buys alcohol in the morning?  Surely those
who need to really need anti-alcohol laws, if we are to have any!  And if
you are having a party in CT into the evening and are running low on adult
beverages, you'd better have planned ahead or be ready to send somebody to
the packy (sing?) before 7:30 or so.  Some will deliver, but you gotta know
which, and you gotta call early enough.  Otherwise it's soft drinks for the
rest of the night.

The grocery stores in CT can sell beer and malt bevs and such -- but not
wine.  It may have to do with the percentage of alcohol, I don't know.  But
it is silly; don't you always see people (esp. college age) getting drunk on
wine, and never on Budweiser 40s from a bag, or on Smirnoff Ice.

In Ohio, you can buy beer and wine in grocery stores, and some even have
licenses for the hard stuff.  And if you are leaving the bar at last call in
Ohio, you can buy a six-pack, even a case, to go (one Columbus bartender
used to say at closing time, "Pick up your carry-outs, and carry out your
pick-ups.").  None of that in Puritanical Connecticut.  Packaged goods can
only be sold here in package stores, hence the name.  I believe that sales
in bars (OK on Sunday even in CT) are officially referred to in CT statutes
as sales "by the dram".  What a place.  When was the last time you ordered a
dram of whiskey?

In Connecticut, if one wants wine or booze in bottles, it's only available
from package stores (which are, btw, prohibited from selling food in ANY
form; no chips, not even Slim Jims or chewing gum; gotta go to a grocery or
convenience store for that).  And make sure you get to the packy before 8,
and remember that they are all closed on Sunday, no exceptions.  Of course,
if you are hard core, you can drive to NY state, Mass., or RI, where one can
buy packaged goods on Sunday.  But the blue laws still apply in CT on
Sunday.  The other states in the region, even ones settled by Puritans, have
long since lightened up.  But Connecticut is, after all, "The Land of Steady
Habits".

Finally, if it is Sunday in CT, and you have nothing in the fridge or liquor
cabinet or wine cellar, and you are thirsting for an adult beverage, you can
of course go to a bar.  You can have as many drinks there as you can afford
and as long as they will serve you.  You can then get off the bar stool and
drive home.  But you cannot, if you have nothing in the house on a Sunday in
CT, go to any store in the state, buy a bottle, bring it home, and drink it
sensibly while watching the tube, car in the driveway.  Go figure.

Frank Abate

PS: It would be a fascinating study to compare liquor laws nationwide in
each state, and the associated lingo.  I suspect, without studying it
formally, that the variation is because all these laws were written by each
state individually in the 1930s, after Prohibition was lifted by the feds.
Now there's a dissertation topic for ya!  And the research -- a grad
student's dream!  Why you could even expense the drinking!!!


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.
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