fronkis

Blue Laws and the Local Economy

So I went grocery shopping this morning at the local mart.  I frequent this mart as opposed to others because their produce is very good, they have a great store brand that has plenty of variety and the store is very clean and the help friendly.

Being the weekend and we usually have a small quantity of alcohol in the house I picked out some; A Sam Adams variety pack and some vodka to make various mixers.  Also, being the busy kind of house that we are, I typically go out for the weekly shop either first thing in the morning or later in the evening after children are in bed.  In this case, it was 10am when I went out - early for us on a weekend :)

Being that I live in the draconian nanny-state of Massachusetts, I got to the checkout just about 11am and was told, “Can’t sell alcohol until after noon.”  “Oh, ok.  Whatever then,” I reply.

To me, no big deal, I don’t *really* need it anyway.

That’s one of the two ways that the Blue Laws hurt the local economy.  I could, because I don’t have a burnin’ urge to get liquored up, just go home without it.  Lost sale.  Lost tax revenue etc etc.

Or, because I live in a border town, I can go literally 10 minutes from my house to the state liquor store in the neighboring state where there are no blue laws and there’s also no sales tax. Again, lost local sale, lost tax revenue etc.

Also, Blue Laws make no sense! If the whole point of it was to restrict activities on Sunday so that you were supposed to observe the Lord’s day and what not, why can I then buy alcohol as long as I wait until half the day has gone by?  It’s a Sunday, so really, I’ve probably only effectively been up 3 hours until I can buy me some liquor and get shitfaced and run down a farmer’s market.

And if we really took them seriously, wouldn’t the nice girl checking my groceries out have scolded me for being in the store before noon?  Afterall, I should be in church instead of grocery shopping!  Then, I could have turned the tables on her and have scolded her and the entire establishment that it’s the devil’s work for being open on a Sunday in the first place!  Shit, at least in Germany most stores are actually closed on a Sunday - there’s some consistency… leave it to the Germans :)

And hell, while I’m thinking about it, it’s usually because of Blue Laws that you’re paid time-and-a-half if you’re an hourly employee working on a Sunday.  Aw shit, the boy’s not in church, we better make up for missing his penance by paying him 150% of his normal shit wage. Surely that will be ok in the eyes of the Lord.

Not only that, but it costs more to operate in a state with Blue Laws where your employees get time-and-a-half on Sundays.  You could pay for 3 employees to work on Sunday instead of 2 for the same outlay.  Want to create more jobs?  Repeal these out-of-touch ancient laws that only punish the business owner.

Fuck blue laws.