“If misery actually loves company, then Connecticut must have a very special bond with Georgia and Indiana. Those two states, with far different cultures than ours, are the last to stand with us in banning stores from selling alcoholic beverages on Sunday,” wrote Terry Cowgill for CtNewsJunkie.com in his latest Op-Ed that I completely agree with.
“Looking for fixes to a projected $3.7-billion budget deficit and spurred by predictions of $3.6 million in revenues per year from additional sales and use taxes, lawmakers, along with mayors of the state’s three largest cities, are mounting one last effort to defeat a small special interest that exercises great influence disproportionate to its actual numbers.”
“At a legislative hearing Tuesday, representatives of both sides trotted out the usual arguments: package stores near state lines are at an unfair disadvantage; Sunday sales will drive small package stores out of business; the government has no business telling retailers which days of the week they can be open.”
You can read Cowgill’s complete column here.
As consumer, Connecticut voters should rise up and strike down this law as well as laws and regulations that act as price controls limiting how LOW alcohol prices can be. These laws are intended to benefit a few at the expense of many. I agree that small package store owners have a challenge, but that doesn’t mean that laws should be enacted to protect their businesses. Either they figure out how to be profitable with these laws or they should be allowed to go under, just like any other business in a market system.
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……You left Alabama out of your list. Sunday sales are banned here, too. There are exceptions. Local municipalities can override that, and a few cities, including Birmingham do have Sunday sales. That said, at least a third of the counties in the state are totally dry, no alcohol sales at all!
……In many rural towns, it’s an unholy alliance between the southern Baptists and the bootleggers that keep alcohol sales illegal…
Package-store owners claim that supermarkets, which are already open on Sundays, will drive them out of business. There’s a major flaw in this thinking, however: Supermarkets don’t really compete with package stores, because while supermarkets can sell beer, they can’t sell wine or liquor. Package stores would retain their monopoly on the latter two product lines.
Of course, I’m also of the opinion that supermarkets should also be able to sell wine and liquor. I’ve lived in California where supermarkets sold all of these, and there were still neighborhood package stores all over the place. Package store owners need to give up the protection racket that’s shielded them from having to adapt to the modern world.