Thursday, January 19, 2012

Indiana's lingering legislative blue law fetish dooms Sunday off-premise alcohol sales in Indiana ...

... except for small breweries and wineries.

It amazes me that our Indy-centric legislators prattle endlessly about economic development, and at the same time, never seem to understand that drinkers living on state borders travel to where they can spend their money on Sunday, namely surrounding states.

Also, Indiana's legislative contingent continues to endorse the doltish notion that it's better to go to a bar on Sunday to drink, and then drive home, as opposed to taking the alcohol home to drink.

And then there is Rep. Davis's comment to the effect that six days in a week is enough to buy alcoholic beverages. The same might be said for groceries and restaurants; if you plan ahead and buy supplies earlier in the week, do you really need to go anywhere at all on Sunday? Why permit any shop or store to open on Sunday, according to this reasoning? Is it 2012, or 1812?

Of course, Rep. Davis's blue-law-friendly internal rationalization is not how it works in real life -- and increasingly, real life is a place that few of these political dullards seem to inhabit, although Ideologyland is fairly bursting at the seams.

Sunday alcohol sales dead in Legislature, by Maureen Hayden (CNHI Statehouse Bureau)

INDIANAPOLIS — Depending on what happens in the Sunday-dry state of Connecticut, Indiana could soon become the last state in the nation with a Sunday ban on alcohol sales.

Legislative leaders in the Indiana General Assembly have decided against scheduling committee hearings on a bill that would have lifted the decades-old prohibition on the Sunday sale of alcohol for off-premise consumption.

Their decision effectively kills the bill.

“Surely we can buy enough alcohol in this state six days a week that we don’t need a seventh day to do it,” said state Rep. Bill Davis, the Republican chair of House Committee on Public Policy where the bill had been assigned.

No comments: