Stupid State Beer/Liquor Laws

Oregon is 7 am to 2:30 am. I do not understand why they wont jut make it 24 hrs. I get off work and 5 am .Can't buy a beer.

 

When I lived in PA one of the local bars on the way into US Steel in Fairless Hills, the place was packed in the mornings with guys getting off 3d shift. All the local bars were full of steel workers some drinking before shift and after shift, they all were thriving. Thats how trickle down stuff works, all those small deli’s were profitable mom and pops. Now it’s a ghost town once they shut down the furnaces.

 

Back in the late '70s, when my plant was on 10 hour shifts, the "night" shifts started at 5 - 5:30 pm and ended a 3:30 - 4 am (depending on dept.). The local bars closed at 1 (or 2? Who remembers). Some "entrepreneurial" types would fill a garbage can packed with ice full of cans of Bud and sell them for a $1 each in the parking lot. (A case of Bud sold locally for $8). One guy even had a second can of Rheingold 16 oz-ers for the same buck a piece.

The problem was, those guys got so used to that extra cash, that when we went back to 8 hours and the night shifts ended while the bar across the street was still opened, they kept selling. Somehow, the local cops "found out" and they were soon busted and shut down.

(Me? I planned ahead and BYOB'ed for breaks, lunch and the occasional post-shift drive home. When we were on the same shift, I'd just stick my beer in the cooler full of Ballantine Ale deposit bottles in my ol' man's Pinto hatchback - or grab one of his.)

 

To this day I'm still irked at the inability to be able to purchase beer online and have it shipped to my door. The wife and I belong to a Washington States wine club and can have seasonal releases delivered but heaven forbid having liquid gold delivered here...

 

I used to belong to a beer-of-the-month club that delivered direct -- are they extinct?

 

It may not be that so much as TN doesn't allow direct to consumer shipment of Beer. All of the larger players and breweries (Tavour or my favorite CA brewer, Pariah ) cannot ship to TN....hopefully that'll change one day.

 

I knew of places in NJ that were only open that early on Friday morning. That was back when everyone was paid by check. The bars would cash paychecks of the third shift guys and of course get lots of business, the workers going home with a slightly smaller amount of money. This was in and around the Newark/Elizabeth area with many factories and the port.

 

Those were the days, all my uncles graduated from HS with their choice of jobs, US Steel, GM, every one I knew who worked there had Cadillacs, a beach house or a mountain second home. My Uncle retired from US Steel a millionaire, but he worked his ass off too, Double shifts. 3 months in a row without a day off, at the end they gave him 125 K to retire in his 50s with 30 years plus on the job. Those days are so long gone and we’re not better off for it.

 

Well, yes and no. It sucks that a modern high school grad can't walk into a solid 30 year career, have the nice things, and help the following generations.

OTOH, it's good that folks don't have to work 3 straight months, that workplaces are cleaner and safer, and that folks have a smaller chance of developing some dread disease later in life, and not be able to fully enjoy their golden years.

Shrug. Our modern world.

 

He worked like a donkey because he loved it, he worked for 30 plus years with his friends he went to grade school with and were lifetime friends. He’s has a heart thingy and he has about 25% heart function, but he still cuts his own grass in the summer heat, guys one of a kind. Work wasn’t really work fir these guys it was a HS reunion everyday and they were well paid.

 

That was the law up until about three years ago; now "normal" (not restricted by ABV) beer is available at grocery stores; I believe wine is also available but spirits may still be restricted to liquor stores. I'm not sure exactly the timeline because I only go to CO to visit family; I was last there in mid-2019 where you could, and the year prior I couldn't.

 

I grew up in Cleveland County NC, still to this day a dry county. Shelby, the main city just voted in beer, wine, and liquor in the late 1970s with no sales on Sunday. My buddies and I made many a beer run to Charlotte on Sundays.

 

Kinda the reverse - without these sorts of restrictive laws (starting with Section 2 of the 21st Amendment) the country might never have gotten Repeal. Lots of the laws were initially designed to avoid the excesses within the alcoholic beverage industries that helped bring on Prohibition in the first place. Are some of them out-dated - sure. But many such regulations have been adjusted or repealed over the past few decades - the PA case law, numerous states' ABV limits, ending of 3.2 beer laws (only MN's left, IIRC), legalization of brewpubs and direct retail sale of beer by breweries, ending bans on Sunday sales, Texas' beer/ale/malt liquor definition that affected many beer labels, etc.

 

Charlotte, Greensboro, Asheville, Winston-Salem, Raleigh, Durham, Chapel Hill, and Wilmington are blue areas surrounded by a sea of red. West and East are like two different states. But it's all purdy, ya'll!

 

What about Mount Airy, supposedly the real-life Mayberry? I don't ever remember there being a bar in Mayberry, but old Otis surely had no trouble getting a snoot full.

 

Mount Airy is Andy Griffith's hometown and it really is coming along nicely. Foothills leading into the mountains and some of the finest granite on earth. Pilot Mountain is nearby with its iconic profile known far and wide.

 

But, can ya get a drink there?

 

Yep, no problem. I believe there's a brewery in town these days. Just to the east in Rockingham County there's a popular brewing and fermentable curriculum at Rockingham Community College.

 

Yes you can at Old North State Winery, they have multiple taps, many bottles, wine obviously, mixed drinks. Food

Loaded Goat is just a block off main, same.

There’s two more off Main St to the North side that I can’t remember their names. Pizza joint beer bars.

My Airey has become a bit touristy, it’s changed a lot in say 10-12 years.