Laws in a Mormon Country

[Aurora]

Thanks, Wolfie and Rowan, for the info! Now I understand better, and that NIDDK page is very informative as well. Yet another reason to drink water, eat healthy and lose weight, huh? :)

[CanadianHippie]

Oh yeah, I think that's the whole state - it's a pain in the ass, let me tell you. I love being able to pick up wine and beer at the grocery store when we go to Iowa. When my son was littler I just took him in the store with me when I picked up stuff for cooking or parties - nobody even blinked when he was an infant - but now he's big enough, this summer I got asked to leave him in the taped-off area by the door that's legal for under-21s. No thank you. But it's hard to schedule a kid-free shopping trip during the hours the liquor store is open. I have to wait for him to go to bed!

Also in Wisconsin people take kids to bars all the time, and that was true in Iowa when I was growing up - like, corner bars would have a foozball table and a pool table and serve some food and kids would just hang out & drink pop & play games while their parents had a beer and talked. Seems like nobody does it here. Minnesota is weird.

The bolded part doesn't make much sense to me, are they afraid the kids are going to pop open a bottle while walking through liquor stores with their parents or something? Where I live you have to buy hard alcohol from provincially run stores, but anyone under 19 is allowed in with an adult. It's not unusual to see kids in the liquor stores with their parents.

[CanadianHippie]

Here most stores are open everyday, there are a few days (like Christmas or stat holidays where most stores are closed but always a few are open). I think all liquor stores are closed on Sunday, though.

[DistantStar]

It honestly surprises me that the local liquor stores are open here on Sundays, this being Idaho, though only from 12 to 5 or something like that. (Also being something of an Episcopalian I have no problem with the concept of running by the liquor store after church. :D ) And they close at 7 the rest of the week. Makes no sense to me, I guess you just have to plan way ahead if you think you might need more at some point later in the evening.

[fakepigtails73]

Here the age for buying alcohol is 18.

Spirits and wine are sold in provincial stores, opened on sundays until 5. Beer and cheaper quality wines are sold in grocery stores and neighbourhood corner stores.

Stores are opened on sundays since 1993 or 1994. 5 days per year when 90% of stores are closed (i.e holidays).

[Hane]

Up here in Blue law Country (Connecticut) you can't buy alcohol in a store on Sundays or after 9pm, it was 8pm until a few years ago. Stores used to open after noon on Sundays when I was young but that law has ended.

Fellow (and older) Connecticutter here. Until a generation ago, only small neighborhood grocery stores were allowed to be open on Sundays. (My dad ran one.) That changed when the large supermarket chains went to court, fought to overturn that blue law, and won. All wine and liquor can only be sold in "package stores."* (One day, I was in a CVS [chain drugstore], and ran into an out-of-state couple who were shocked to learn they couldn't buy liquor in it, and had to go to the package store across the street.) Beer is available in grocery stores, but only till 9 PM, and never on Sundays. In 1970, when the drinking age was lowered to 18 (and I conveniently turned 18), I was having dinner in a restaurant with my boyfriend one day, and the waitress told us she couldn't serve anybody alcoholic drinks because it was voting day.

*I don't see this changing anytime soon, as privately owned liquor stores and distributors are a powerful lobby here.

I met my first Mormon when I was a teen in the mid-'60s, volunteering at a day camp for kids with developmental disabilities. One of the campers told me, "I'm a Mormon. That means I can't drink Coke." I figured there was a lot more to the religion than that.

[Patsy]

I have a question for those who have lived in very Mormon areas: can you get tea at the grocery store? Any variety? I assume some Mormons must drink tea, even without hiding it (not that hiding it would mean there wouldn't be a way to buy it - I believe Utah has the highest rate of downloaded pornography subscriptions in the U.S.), but do sheer numbers make it difficult to find different varieties?

[FundiesInMyFamily]

(One day, I was in a CVS [chain drugstore], and ran into an out-of-state couple who were shocked to learn they couldn't buy liquor in it, and had to go to the package store across the street.)

I had the opposite experience... here in colorado, you can buy beer in grocery stores, everything else is in a liquor store (or you can go to beverage world, the mega store of alcohol!). About 5 years ago we went to Florida and were shocked to see wine at the 7-11 - we thought it was so cool that we took pictures!

[2xx1xy1JD]

I grew up with Sunday closing laws, until they were defeated in one of the earliest uses of Canada's Charter of Rights. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R._v._Big_M_Drug_Mart_Ltd. There were attempted to maintain the ban on Sunday shopping afterward for labour-rights purposes, but they learned to stop calling it "the Lord's Day Act" and called it the Retail Business Holidays Act instead. That second law had a slew of exceptions, including convenience stores, small pharmacies, tourist areas, etc. Under both laws, there were exceptions for small businesses that closed on another day for religious purposes. As a result, I spent a lot of time as a kid shopping with my mom in the Jewish stores and factories. The law never affected essential services.

Today, we have Sunday shopping (although with shorter hours than Saturday shopping in most places), and I can't imagine how we managed without it, as I don't shop on Saturdays for religious reasons. Alcohol laws are restrictive here. For beer, you have to go to The Beer Store (yes, that's its real name). Wine and liquor requires a trip to the local Liquor Control Board of Ontario outlet, with a small exception for local wineries.

In terms of alcohol and caffeine: Utah allows both, but IIRC they do have unusually restrictive alcohol laws. Cafes also have prominent selections of caffeine-free herbal teas, in addition to their regular stock. I visited Utah during my first pregnancy, and it was possibly the best place to be a pregnant woman since it was pretty easy to avoid cigarette smoke, alcohol and caffeine.

[fakepigtails73]

I lived in Ontario for 2 yrs and I was shocked at the govt-owned Beer Stores. They closed too early as well! I liked the LCBO (wine and spirits store) near my house though, less expensive that our SAQ in QC for sure.

Other Canucks: is there any provinces in Canada that privatized their liquor stores? Alberta maybe? If so, did you notice a drop in wine prices afterwards?

When I went to Las Vegas I was fascinated by the fact that you could buy alcohol 24-7; in Cape Hatteras (North Carolina) I experienced a drive-through liquor store (that was in 1992, and in that state they were super strict with carting. I could buy booze wher I lived but not there as I wasn't 21.)

[Maul the Koala]

Other Canucks: is there any provinces in Canada that privatized their liquor stores? Alberta maybe? If so, did you notice a drop in wine prices afterwards?

Albertan here. I don't remember the pre-privatization times (someone else on here might) but we didn't have minimum drink prices in bars up until about 4-5 years ago. You used to be able to get 25 cent highballs at a lot of bars/clubs for a while. Very easy to get drunk on little money.

Some places in Alberta have restricted the time liquor stores are allowed to be open but there are plenty in my area that are open until 2 am every day of the week. I swear, there are more liquor stores than any other type of store in my area. I really noticed it when I was living in Ontario and the only places you could get alcohol were the LBCO and the Beer Store. And those were NOT on every shopping block!

[Kelya]

Where I live in eastern europe now, most things are closed on sundays. the local outdoor year round market is closed, and the small local shops are open from like 10-1, just in case you've run out of bread or something. We always seem to end up eating take out stand food at 9pm on a Sunday since we invariably forget to grocery shop on Saturday...or don't think about it until like four when everything's closing.

TLDR: weekends in this country are hard.

[lilwriter85]

I have a question for those who have lived in very Mormon areas: can you get tea at the grocery store? Any variety? I assume some Mormons must drink tea, even without hiding it (not that hiding it would mean there wouldn't be a way to buy it - I believe Utah has the highest rate of downloaded pornography subscriptions in the U.S.), but do sheer numbers make it difficult to find different varieties?

I know a few people who live in Utah in Ogden and SLC, and they said that the grocery store chains carry tea, soda, and other caffeine products.