Sensible and Dumb State Beer Laws

Friggin' California, they won't sell beer after 2 am and before 6 am, and ya gotta be 21 or older. What is the world coming to....

The last beach in California where alcohol consumption was allowed is right in front of our condo. Gotta admit, I'm glad they did away with that a few years ago. Must've had something to do with the hellacious drunken riot one summer afternoon.

No goofy rules here that I can think of, other than defining beer and ale differently by ABV.

Edit: One goofy rule was actually a misinterpretation by all the microbreweries. The breweries thought they could only fill growlers with their name on it and not blank glass or foreign glass with the name taped over. ABC never said that and, thankfully as I have quite the growler collection now, breweries will fill blank glass.

 

I have no real complaints about New York's beer laws. I can buy beer in any given grocery or convenient store, including six-packs, cases, and singles. The only thing that sucks is that my county, and the adjacent counties, can't sell alcohol past 1 AM.

Pennsylvania, though...? What a mess.

 

Oklahoma has/had that same law, on my second trip visiting my daughter there I finally got up the nerve to visit a brewery, was amazed at the body they were getting on sub 4% beers. They have those beers dialed in.

 

No longer the case...

 

True, but it seemed to me while I was living there, that vested financial interests were holding more sway ( liquor store lobbyist & distributors ) than any one, mind you that was 9 years ago...

 

I think Missouri is one of the more liberal states when it comes to these laws. I have never seen a growler fill station though. Can get growler fills at some bars though...

 

Would you feel this way if it meant no beer in most grocery or convenience stores? That's the effect of a similar law in MA that is slowly being phased out.

 

I wouldn't like one-license per owner here. Hy-vee is a regional supermarket chain with 7 stores in Sioux Falls, and they each have liquor stores larger than any other in town. They have decent craft selections, so would not want to see this change.

 

I have never got the early morning alcohol sales restrictions in grocery stores, especially on Sundays.

I'm obviously buying groceries and the beer is for later, I'm not going to head out to the parking lot, get drunk, and crash a church

 

We have hyvee too, only a couple are actually decent though. A lot of them have wine and spirits managers who know dick about beer.

 

A far as NY is concerned it's the inconvenience of buying your liquor and wine in a different store. That's not so bad. For beer we can buy singles, sixers and any other packaging for beer but not between the hours of midnight and 8 am in the grocery and no liquor at all after 9 pm when the store is closed.

 

Tennessee:
No liquor or wine or beer higher than 6.5% ABV sold on Sunday.
No liquor or wine or beer sold in the same store as beer under 6.5% ABV. This law was recently turned over with some stipulation. High Grav and Low Grav can now be sold in the same store as long as the store doesnt serve any beer. There are a few stores that had 2 different entrances, with walls between to be able to have both. Some of them were able to take the walls down.

We will finally be able to buy wine in grocery stores beginning on July 1st.

We went to Corsair Distillery last weekend, and the law is now that they can only serve 1/2 oz at a time.

We also had the highest beer tax in the nation up until a couple years ago. Not sure how we stack up now.

 

Also no happy hour, but daily specials are ok. Packaged liquor only sold through government (county owned) ABC stores, which do not sell wine or beer and are not open on Sundays. I also believe, but am not 100%, that breweries can only fill growlers with thier own label.

 

In 2010 I was in an Italian restaurant in Nashville, the night before my folks and I were to fly back to the PNW after my Gramdmother's funeral. Being wine people, my parents asked for a wine list. The waiter said they could not serve alcohol because they were across the street from a church. That struck us as rather ridiculous.

 

Thats the bible belt for ya!

 

We'll be over towards the airport - I will have to hit up the NE forum for advice come time to roll that way.

 

Wonder if they serve wine for communion in that church....

 

I lived in Kansas at a time when it was illegal for a plane flying over the state to serve alcohol.

 

New Hampshire is up and down. For small nano-breweries that brew 2,000 barrels or less per year you can pay one licensing fee for multiple labels. You can self-distribute your bottles. You can sell growlers. You can do tastings. We can buy beer at Farmer's markets and they recently passed a law allowing for beer tastings at Farmer's market. This has contributed to the Renaissance of local hometown breweries cropping up all over.

You can buy beer just about anyplace including grocery stores, convenience stores, and gas stations. But there's a hitch if you want to operate a bottle shop. In order to sell beer something like 10% of all your retail sales have to be groceries. So these wonderful beer stores that have 700+ labels get stuck selling cans of Campbell's soup, Dole's pineapple chunks, ketchup, mustard, potato chips, etc., that no one wants to buy. Most of these shops throw the stuff out because it expires.

For craft brewers bigger than 2,000 barrels per year there are huge licensing fees for each label you want to distribute here. That's why it takes so long for breweries that seem to be found everywhere else in New England or the Northeast get delayed coming to New Hampshire.

There was a big to-do last year about Founder's Breakfast Stout being banned here because the label depicts a child. The law was revised but labels still need approval from the NH State Liquor Commission.