Nope, yet again. Most liquor stores are very much against opening on Sundays. It gives them another day of overhead without any real increases in sales.
No one is forcing them to open. There is no reason for the law except bible thumpers. Some liquor store would happily open on Sunday if they have a choice. Some won’t. Since they have never been open on Sundays, you don’t know the volume vs overhead trade off.
https://www.texastribune.org/2019/04/16/texas-alcohol-regulations-explained/ Liquor store owners, however, have argued that cost of opening on Sundays would not be offset by the potential revenue stores would gain. Go read the part about Sunday Sales, if you're interested. It has nothing to do with church anymore.
That's good and all but I want to get hammered on Sundays without being prepared for it the day before. It should be my Constitutional right!
How come they don't allow liquor sales in grocery stores in Texas? A lot of other states, including very conservative ones, do. If they want to "rest" and keep costs low by not opening on Sunday, fine... but they should still allow other stores to sell. Also, the large stores (Specs, Total Wines) could probably still do quite well on Sundays.
Agreed. I know most people who do their weekly shopping on either Sunday morning or Sunday evening. Liquor would sell on Sundays. It’s not biblical times. It would sell very well at grocery stores in Texas.
It's a few things, so blue laws originally and in some cases are still in play for religious purposes to hide it (stated as the reason usually)- Here's a long explanation - https://www.alcoholproblemsandsolutions.org/Controversies/Alcohol-Blue-Laws.html With that said, now though, while blue laws original purpose are usually stated for religious reasons it's more of a money/control thing now. Basically by not being sold in big corporations stores due to tabc/liquor store owners control it allows them to maximize profits/power. Even limit who can own a liquor store. The article above from Buck fully details how much power/money is in play - "In many other states, you can get booze at Walmart and Costco. Not in Texas. Thanks to powerful lobbying from homegrown liquor store interests, Texas is the only state in the nation that bars publicly traded corporations from holding liquor permits. You can thank the powerful liquor store owners for that". - basically it's being blocked and controlled from being sold at retailers so the liquor owners can hold control/profit and limit the market. If Wal-Mart and others were allowed to practice capitalism freely it would destroy the power the liquor owners/tabc have established over years. Essentially if liquor was sold everywhere it would hurt overall profit from liquor store owners. By having the law in place it basically guarantees liquor stores make money since they're the only retail business that can sell liquor. So then by having this power they basically have no reason to want this to be changed - because being allowed to operate on Sunday and losing blue law for Sunday would then easily open the door for the next step to retailers selling liquor (vice versa here - ie retailers sell m-Saturday, next step is losing Sunday, so they'd lose). Basically they can maximize profit/cut costs hiding behind these laws. I don't like these laws but basically it lines the pockets of texas officials, hell, when a major corporation loses a lawsuit, there's no chance of this changing until officials are eventually swapped out/enough money is pumped in to take control from liquor families that own it.
When I was in the liquor business, we looked forward to Sunday as a day off for everyone. I suspect that is the real reason, similar to car dealerships being closed on random days (Monday? I can't remember). Of course you would profit by being open on Sundays. The real fear in that industry is allowing grocery stores to sell liquor. They fought hard on beer/wine and eventually lost, but the liquor will be their last stand. If HEB and crew are allowed to sell liquor, it will have a big impact on a lot of retailers who may be forced to close. A lot of liquor stores will go into shopping centers with grocery anchor to piggyback off their business.
Car dealerships fall under the same type of blue laws, basically they have to be closed on Saturday or Sunday and can't be open on consecutive weekend days. https://www.houstonpublicmedia.org/...doesnt-allow-car-sales-every-day-of-the-week/
I’m actually fine with it not being in grocery stores. I don’t mind having to go to a liquor store for my rations of bourbon. If it did happen, liquor stores would have to become and market themselves as the specialty stores. Big grocery likely wouldn’t have the more rare stuff and just stick to the generics like Jack and Tito’s.
I think this probably would have been a lot easier answer than the book I wrote, haha. Anyway, great article you posted above from Texas Tribune to hopefully remind people what's actually going on.
The "society" of Fredericksburg manages to pull it off very well. This is absolutely true. I personally know members of our state government who looked into the TABC from top to bottom. There are inexplicable laws that are designed to benefit a few at the cost of the many that are enforced by the TABC. Attempts have been made to change those laws, and lobbyists for the "few" always manage to get the attempts railroaded.
I was for opening liquor sales on Sunday’s until I became friends with a few liquor store owners who said this exact thing. They are family businesses and being closed on Sunday gives them one day off. While this would be a good thing for specs/total wine, it would hurt the mom and pops sales or they could work 7 days a week.
When I was in college in St. Louis, we could just go to the grocery stores with our fake IDs to buy cartloads of liquor. There were very few independent liquor stores around, and we never went to them. There was a discount liquor chain, Dirt Cheap, in the area. My roommate went to high school with the girl inside the chicken costume of their mascot. "Cheap, cheap, fun, fun" was their slogan. It makes sense to me what Buck's posted about the real influence being various lobbies and government graft. The church hasn't had the influence to keep these laws on the books in forever, at least in Texas. I don't think too many church-going folk would care one bit, at least not any I know. It's the people that have the most to benefit and lose that make these things happen behind the scenes. In my experience mixing drinks, the small local stores here are more likely to have specialty items I'm looking for that: mainly 375 mL and smaller bottles of liqueurs and other things. No, I do not need a fifth of blackberry brandy and creme de noyaux, Spec's et al. The big stores have all the wine and beer and everything locked up, but the smaller stores are better to stock a reasonable bar with in my experience. And not any more expensive. I even found a bottle of Benedictine at a small store near me, and NOBODY has that anywhere. B&Bs are awesome drinks. Now, that doesn't mean I want laws or whatever that protect these smaller places. I'm generally in favor the government staying out of it. Just as long as someone still has the stuff I need for my purposes.
