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Comment by hoseja | Hacker News Reader

What an awful, prohibition-warped system.

Wait til you hear about State Stores. The day after Prohibition, our state passed a law to explicitly make it as expensive and inconvenient as possible to obtain alcohol. Plus there's always a kickback somewhere: so they invented a system where the State would do the selling of liquor, bars could sell one six pack, and beer wholesalers could sell only cases. The liquor system persists, with its original mandate, having no legal competition. The beer system is loosening slightly: until very recently, it was literally impossible to buy, say three six packs, anywhere.

Hehe... I'll just say I got to drinking age in Utah in 90's and leave it there :-).

I moved from a western state where hard liquor is sold openly in the grocery stores, to an east-coast state with state-run liquor stores that have a monopoly on hard liquor. The east-coast state-run store prices are two-thirds of the western grocery store prices. Part of this is that the western state, despite having open sales, also imposed very high taxes, while the eastern state that restricts sales has low taxes.

In the end, the eastern state sold me more liquor at lower prices until I realized that I was drinking too much and quit. Everyone I knew back west drank; few do out east.

I'm a new Colorado resident; I was quite surprised when I saw a full bar at many coffee shops. Asking what's up with the hard liquor, they said it was for shots in ones' coffee, want one? Wow! Growing up in Iowa, with State Liquor stores, and then school in Massachusetts where the puritan attitude still prevents liquor sales on Sunday, and then California where pot is preferred over booze... Colorado has shots in one's coffee from franchised coffee shops, what a world.

To be clear, what started with a Puritan attitude in New England is only still in place because of lobbying from the liquor stores. No one really wants Blue Laws anymore except those who profit from them.

What state do you live in? In my state we have to put up bilboards that its not okay to let teens drink at a parent hosted party. We can buy booze of any kind on any day, purchases as late as 9, and generally if youre a regular at a bar, drinks after last call. Cops really do not care. If you havent figured it our by now its Wisconsin. The state where teetotalers are less trusted than atheists.

I'd imagine Pennsylvania. They have some really weird alcohol laws and all liquor stores are state owned.

I used to live there and the only place to buy 6 packs was at a restaurant that also served food. They've since loosened up the beer laws, allowing grocery stores and convenience stores to sell beer as long as they have fresh food available and tables for dining.

PA? I used to have to carry the 2 6 packs to my car, and go back in for 2 more on Sundays. Oh the good old days. I am down in South Carolina now, and from what I heard, until recently they only sold liquor in bars in the little airplane bottles.

I especially dislike the age requirement of 21 instead of 18 that result in being asked my ID when I'm in my 30's because it's very hard to differentiate between adults (in contrast someone under 18 is easy to spot, so there is way less ambiguity and ID asking, you really have to look like a kid to be asked).

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