Looks like there is a big push underfoot to get the General Assembly to allow liquor sales on Sunday. They dodged it last year by claiming they had too many other things on their plate. Eventually, on hopes, legislators will have to lift the ban on Sunday liquor sales or explain their rationale.
Keith Roysdon, writing for the Muncie Star Press, has an article entitled “Blue over Beer.” Liquor stores claim that they will be put at a disadvantage to chain grocery stores if Sunday sales are allowed. In my mind, this matters only if liquor store owners can make a case as to why they ought to be some sort of privileged class. Sympathy isn’t exactly the first feeling that comes to mind when I think of liquor stores. There are certainly exceptions, but for the most part in my experience, they are grim, slightly seedy places. Unlike the romantic vision we have of the family farmer — who we are routinely called upon to subsidize — there is no mythological mom & pop liquor store that brings visions of a better time.
I should add that there are a handful of liquor stores that would be a loss. These aren’t shabby stores that rely primarily on selling 30 packs of Stroh’s and staffed by minimum wage employees who obviously hate their lives. Rather, they seem to be staffed by owner operators who really know and have a passion for their product. They stock good beers and wines and can tell you all about them. Locally, in Lafayette, the Village Bottle Shoppes have some of these good qualities.
The current Sunday prohibition on alcohol sales is an anachronism. It was enacted, according to the Roysdon article, as a sop to anti-liquor activists in the wake of the repeal of Prohibition. With booze being available on Sundays in restaurants and bars, it no longer makes any sense –if it ever did– as a moral stand against the evils of demon alcohol.
The article has an interesting argument/counter-argument by the liquor store owners versus the big grocery stores. The liquor stores claim that excise police can more easily stop sale of alcohol to minors at liquor stores because it’s obvious that anyone coming out of a liquor store has purchased alcohol. The grocery store owners cite a study saying that liquor stores are twice as likely to sell to minors. And, obviously, none of this has much to do with Sunday sales — my recollection as an underage drinker was that I mostly was looking to do some binge drinking on Fridays and Saturdays.
Maybe I’m missing something, but I don’t fear a world in which most of the mass produced booze is routed through box stores but where there are fewer, better liquor stores, with knowledgeable owners and employees, that act as specialty shops for craft beers and wines.
Couple things: I’m all for Sunday sales, but I’m afraid I’ve developed a substantial allergic reaction to ideas that kick around the Statehouse for ten years before being decided in favor of whichever side has the money (think casinos, beer baronage, fireworks, DST, the original Sunday sales law), usually meaning which side has big, out-of-state wholesalers, developers, or big-box retailers on its side. If we can’t place limits on how long industries can “lobby” for a particular piece of legislation then we’d be wise to limit how long an individual lawmaker can sup at our expense.
Second, I think liquor stores have an argument in that the state restricts their trading, requiring they purchase all alcohol from state-licensed distributors, and by differential pricing of licenses. In exchange they get cold sales (which includes keg sales). They’re also prohibited from selling out of state, or from acting as wholesalers, and severely restricted (some might say dictated to) in terms of what additional merchandise they can offer (no fresh produce, for example).
Of course the consumer gets it worst of all, and with no one to speak for him: prohibited from buying anything the state distributors do not deign to sell, or anything they keep for preferred on-premisis sellers, unless he first makes a personal trip out of state to prove he’s over 21. Indiana took that argument all the way to SCOTUS.
I’ve been a wine collector since the late 70s. I wish I were as sanguine about as you that Sunday sales will drive out all the crummy short-dog-and-single-cigarettes joints while sparing the oenological specialiste. Marsh and Kroger sure don’t care about selection. I have a sneaking suspicion that it’ll be back to central Indiana having one or two decent wine merchants–good luck in most of the rest of the state–and the distributors given carte blanche to refuse to bring in anything they can’t sell truckloads of. (Used to be there were a couple dozen distributors in the state, but the Big Guys gobbled up everybody else in–wait for it!–the 80s. They’re still protected by a state residency requirement for license ownership, though they’re allowed to do business in other states; that is currently subject of a legal challenge by multi-state wholesalers.)
I think it is the supermarkets and discount stores that are pushing for this. A few months ago, I was shopping at Wal-Mart and threw some white wine into my cart. When I was checking out, the cashier said, “It’s Sunday.” I wasn’t even thinking, and there was no sign in the beer/wine aisle that I recall. It was no big deal, because I buy wine only to cook with. (Don’t shoot me, Doghouse!)
I don’t care one way or the other about Sunday sales of alcohol, as people can stock up on other days of the week if they want to drink on Sunday. Prohibiting Sunday sales is not going to limit Sunday consumption.
The primary beneficiaries of lifting the prohibition will be big box retailers. So many people do their shopping on Sundays, and the supermarket-discount stores make their money from claiming to be one-stop shopping. Alcohol tends to be expensive, so if people who shop on Sundays could buy their wine, beer, and spirits at the giganto mart, the stores could get an extra five, ten, fifteen, or twenty dollars from many of their customers. Small liquor stores would probably remain closed on Sundays, anyway, just like a lot of other small, local businesses. Therefore, they may not reap the benefits of lifting the ban.
Our corner liquor store looks exactly like your description of the stereotypical seedy liquor store, and certainly sells plenty of low-end stuff, but also has one of the finest beer selections inside 465. A few weeks ago, I was in Bloomington and went into a store that I once considered Mecca, and realized there wasn’t a whole lot there that I could get a block from my house on the east side of Indianapolis. I guess my point is that there’s more of a continuum than your dichotomy suggests. I think Doghouse makes good points about the over-regulated nature of the alcohol business in general.
Still, while Pila and Doghouse make good points, ultimately, I would prefer that consumers have the option of buying alcohol on Sundays if they so choose. While I’m sure this move primarily would benefit the big box stores, I’m not sure that the overhead required to keep the stores open another 5 hours a week or so is a compelling rationale.