Word: sunday
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...proponents of Sunday sales argue that state budgets are under plenty of pressure too and that by allowing people to buy beer, wine or liquor on Sunday at grocery or package stores, states could reap millions of dollars in tax revenue. Besides, as President Roosevelt learned in the 1930s when he successfully repealed Prohibition, drinks have a way of keeping hopes high when things look bleak. In Johnathan Alter's The Defining Moment: FDR's Hundred Days and the Triumph of Hope, the President recognized that legally-procured cocktails were the way to keep spirits high when Americans were trying...
...Sunday sales legislation] always comes bubbling up when the economy goes south," says David Laband, an Auburn University economics professor who authored Blue Laws: The History, Economics, and Politics of Sunday-Closing Laws. Blue laws, which restrict shopping of any kind on Sunday, date back to the colonial era, Laband says. However, those laws gradually died off as economic forces made some states realize that they could stand to gain by having stores open on Sunday. For example, the entry of women into the workforce in World War II made weekend shopping a necessity. (See pictures of Denver, Beer Country...
...systematically we've seen these laws lifted in past century, even more so when there has been an economic downturn," Laband says. "States realize that consumers will migrate to a place where they can buy what they want. And whatever their reasons are for not wanting to sell on Sunday, these states realize they're paying a price for it in foregone tax revenues. So once the economy goes bad, then the cost of their policies are apparent to them...
...budget shortfall in the billions, the extra revenue from an added day of alcohol sales is just a drop in the bucket. His opponents, however, insist it is significant. "At least it's a drop," says Georgia Senator Seth Harp, who introduced a bill proposing local referendums on Sunday sales. "Maybe it's even a cup full. But right now, I'd like to have a couple of cups full than nothing at all." (See what businesses are doing well despite the recession...
Three states - Georgia, Connecticut and Indiana - ban the sale of beer, wine and spirits, while 15 ban only liquor sales. Connecticut is considering repealing its ban because it has been losing revenue to New York, Massachusetts and Rhode Island, three neighboring states that repealed Sunday sales bans in 2003. Texas is also reconsidering Sunday sales bans of liquor, with three bills in the state's Senate, two of them specific to sales along the Texas-Mexico border. "States are seeing Sunday sales as a positive way to raise revenue without raising taxes or cutting valuable programs," says Ben Jenkins, spokesman...