Your State's Liquor Laws

[captainlee]

Colorado, grocery stores can sell wine and beer and a limited amount can have hard liquor. Hard liquor is limited by the number of stores. Also a grocery store can't sell hard if an existing liquor store is within a certain distance. Maybe wine is included in that too. I don't know about C stores, I never go in them.

[Oak Smoke]

The most incredible liquor store I was ever in was Applejack in Denver. Wow it was huge with people on headsets going up and down the isles helping people.

[captainlee]

Yes. When I flew every week I would get emails from friends as to what to pick up,mostly large quantities, on my way back up the mountain. They knew me by name. One year they shipped a case of assorted wines for a Xmas present. Friday evenings they were so busy, the ski busses of tourists would stop so that everybody could load up for the week.

[Alan Brice]

I think Hamilton County Ohio, (Cincy) still has am restrictions on Sunday and election day.
State has to "ok" the outlet for hard liquor and all restaurants. Still Sun am n No election days.
Too many police reports can be a reason to eliminate your alcohol sales ability.

[mrteddyprincess]

Alan Brice my wife and I stayed a night in Cincy several years ago and when I went to buy liquor at Kroger it was half the price, but only half the ABV. What I expected to buy at 40% was only 20%. You know anything about that?!?

[Alan Brice]

Grocery stores are not state stores or state approved (regulated). They can sell a diluted version of liquor, beer and wine at full proof. Some grocers can apply and be approved for the state licensing they are numbered and there are hoops to jump through.
They tend to be Deli or carry outs. My BIL being one.

[Jerod Broussard]

Took some years before I realized you could use liquor stores as county line markers.

[tamidw]

Haha! We have a liquor store in Oregon right over the bridge across the Columbia River from Washington. This little tiny store has a ton of sales, same with a smoke shop right there too. Apparently, the ‘sin tax’ on these items is crazy in Washington.

[Finster]

Delaware.
one stop shop for all at independently owned liquor stores.
Open 7 days at owners discretion

[Purc]

Back in the early to mid 1970s, South Carolina passed liquor by the drink in mini bottles only. So, sometimes you had to buy 2 mini bottles for one drink. If the bar didn't have a wine license, then no martinis because they could not sell vermouth, a wine, by itself or premixed with gin or vodka.

[LA Pork Butt]

Growing up it in New Orleans you could pretty much buy anything any where and almost anytime. Typical places were grocery stores and pharmacies. I guess alcohol was thought of to be as essential as food and it held certain medicinal qualities. Texas is another story and unless things have changed since I last lived there some precincts were wet and others were dry.

[mrteddyprincess]

My daughter and I visited NOLA last Wednesday. I walked into a Walgreens and asked the clerk if we could buy liquor. She rolled her eyes at me :-) It was if to say, "This is New Orleans you cad." My daughter got to pour out half a bottle of Scotch on her great-grandmother, Kitty's grave in Metairie Cemetery. Kitty loved her Scotch.

[Carolyn]

Texas still has a handful of dry counties and the ones that sell liquor have time/day restrictions for some odd reason, like after noon.

[Willy]

Some of my surprising experiences with state liquor laws:

1) Going from AZ to MI to visit wife's family in the early 70s and "everyone" in MI wanted Coors. For reasons that escape me, we waited to buy it in TX. Couldn't buy it at wherever we first stopped (again, the reason escapes me). We did finally score some and made the in-laws happy.
2) Visiting my folks in OK the early 80s, restaurants couldn't sell it to us, but BYOB was OK. As was driving around with open bottles after dinner. WTH?
3) Visiting Dothan, AL on business (Fort Rucker), I ordered a draft beer in an Applebee's and was told "bottles only, no draft beer".
4) Visiting Utah around year 2000, we went to the state liquor store (only choice) to buy a bottle of wine, but they weren't allowed to sell us a corkscrew.
5) Same trip to Utah, we stopped at an Applebee's for dinner in Provo. I was the ONLY one in the whole place having a beer and my wife was told they couldn't give her a glass of white wine as they were out of white wine.
6) And of course, the absurdity of not being able to buy a bottle of Jack Daniels locally cuz it's distilled in a dry county. I understand that has loosened a bit. I STILL highly recommend the the JD distillery tour in Lynchburg. The tour guides do a great job of pretending to be TN hillbillies.

[jerrybell]

I'm in Utah. All wine and liquor and higher-point beer is sold only in state run liquor stores. Beer can be purchased any day of the week at the grocery stores, but the alcohol content is limited to 4.5% ABV. The number of liquor stores is controlled by population density, so it usually makes the news when a new one is opening. If the new location actually has coolers to sell cold beer, that's also newsworthy. There's a bunch of idiotic liquor laws to make it harder to act like an adult here, Google Zion Curtain, as an example. The Olympics helped to loosen some of those restrictions but it's still stupider than it needs to be.

[swartzster]

My daughter lives in Utah. We get there a couple times a year to visit her and the grandkids. The first couple times there I was shocked at what it took to get a drink there

[mrteddyprincess]

Indiana:

Up until I believe 2014 there were absolutely no alcohol sales on Sundays. Liquor stores were closed. No buying at the grocery store. So one had to plan accordingly, especially on the Sunday before Memorial Day when one was going to the race. People were shocked to show up from out of town and find out they couldn't buy beer at the race.

That all changed. We finally allowed liquor sales on Sundays from noon to seven PM now.

And to the dismay of all the people claiming that we'd have a rash of alcohol related crashes and hoards of people addicted to alcohol if we opened up sales on Sundays, none of that has happened.

Alcohol in Indiana is wine, beer, and liquor. So if you can sell one, you can sell all the others.

Oh, but wait, we CANNOT buy cold beer at the grocery store. The liquor store lobby is strong here and they keep the grocery stores from selling beer cold. It cracks me up to visit southern states where every convenience store and grocery store sells cold beer, but I have to go to an ABC state run liquor store to buy hard alcohol. To each his own!

And if you ever find yourself in Fishers, Indiana, let me know and we will have a glass of wine, beer, or liquor in Roy's backyard.

Added edit: Thank goodness the laws in Indiana are keeping the 6 am Kroger shoppers from buying alcohol. I was planning for a dinner and had last minute items to buy for that night. I got to the cash register at 6:30 am and the cashier told me I couldn't buy those two bottles of wine until 7 am. I left the store, went home, made toast, then went back to Kroger at 7:15 am. Can you imagine what kind of chaos might ensue if we allowed people to buy wine at 6:30 am instead of 7 am?!?

B

[johnec00]

In Florida, I think its still by County, but not sure. In my county, grocery stores just sell beer and wine, but some big box stores like Sam's sell hard liquor too. A lot of the groceries have an adjacent liquor store. Florida has no state stores like Virginia and some others do. Growing up, the adjacent county was dry and there was a booming liquor store business right our side of the county line.

[johnec00]

PS: Until about 1963, Alachua County (where the University of Florida is located) was dry. Fortunately I didn't start UofF until 1966!

[DavidNorcross]

State stores for liquor. Can buy beer and wine at any grocery store.

[Bob K]

in FL, beer & wine pretty much anywhere, including pharmacies. liquor is all in standalone liquor stores. usually attached to its sister store. example - Walgreens has an attached, but separate entrance, liquor store. Sam's has same, and they can't require you to be a member it seems, they don't even scan the card. most restaurants have full liquor licenses, a few are beer/wine only.

reading this thread, i imagine the large national distributors must have to hire an army to deal with all the state-to-state inconsistencies, from ABV limits, to delivery & consumption rate. all seems pointless. oh well, amazon will have all that business someday too

[Spinaker]

In MN they used to ban sales on Sunday until a few years ago. Back in my drinking days, I made more than one trip over to Sconi to pick up some booze to get me through a long Sunday. Now I only make that trip for Fireworks. (The good ones!)

[Willy]

Thanks to all who have answered. Keep the stories coming!

[barelfly]

New Mexico - buy it anywhere!! Liquor stores, grocery stores, convenience stores…..grocery and convenience stores sell it all as well.