You want Blue Laws? I got Blue Laws!

[janradder]

A couple weeks back, when I was in South Carolina visiting my father, we made a trip one Sunday morning to the local Wal-Mart (I know, Wal-Mart, but that's where we went) so he could get some groceries and I could buy a few things that we'd forgotten on our trip -- kids' shampoo, a couple of pillows for the boys, and a pair of sandals for Arie.  Fairly controversial items, I know, but we really needed them.

So we went to separate lanes to buy our respective items.  As we waited in line, Arie picked out a pack of gum to add to our purchases. When the cashier got to our items she looked at them and then at me.

"I'm sorry.  I can't sell these to you.  We have Blue Laws."

I looked at her confused.

"It's Sunday," she explained.  "We can't sell anything that can't be consumed before 1:30 on Sunday."

She was very nice about it and almost seemed embarrassed to explain the situation.

"They're right there," Arie said.  "You just have to ring them up."

I told him we'd have to come back later for those things, bought the gum because it was something which could be put into your mouth and, technically, ingested (though the same could be said about the other items as well), and left with Arie still unclear as to why we couldn't just buy the things we came for. In the car, on the way back to my dad's house, I explained to him how some people in the county of Aiken believed that selling things on Sunday was an insult to God and Jesus.

"That's stupid!" said Arie.

Amen.

(Here's the kicker:  Though the purchase of a pair of pillows for my two sons to sleep on, a bottle of shampoo to wash their hair with, and a pair of sandals to protect their feet was considered a profane act which desecrated the very idea of Jesus, I discovered later in the day that, should I have cared to, I could have legally purchased as much booze as was humanly possible to carry from the store and gotten good and liquored up on the Lord's Sabbath since hooch can be imbibed.  Go figure.)

Comments

[justinhowe.livejournal.com]

This makes absolutely no sense to me.

[janradder.livejournal.com]

Clearly, then, you must be a sacrilegious heathen!

[justinhowe.livejournal.com]

Hail Satan!

[st-writes.livejournal.com]

I've never heard of anything like this before, and I grew up in smalltown Kansas, which I thought had some pretty conservative Sunday-related laws. Wouldn't it make more sense to not allow stores to open in the first place (people are working when they should be in church, after all)?
And why blue?

[janradder.livejournal.com]

I always thought the CT blue laws were odd -- not only could you not sell beer after 8pm or on Sunday, it had to be covered up so that no one could even see it. My dad said that there are a bunch of people worked up that even grocery stores are open for that very reason you gave.

(as to the blue part, it is often used to describe something that is both rigidly moralistic as well as blasphemous or sexual in nature)

[pierogi-queen.livejournal.com]

Actually, they are called "Blue Laws" because the law books they were recorded in were Blue. CT got rid of most of the blue laws when you were small. Before they were repealed, stores - even grocery stores couldn't be open on Sunday. A restaurant could serve drinks, but you couldn't go to a bar. And, women were not allowed at the bar at any time in a bar. Men could sit at the bar, but women had to sit at tables.

Until about 10 years ago, adultery was a crime in Connecticut. It was a forgotten statute until some lawyer dug it up and charged his wife with adultery. Next session of the legislature, the law was repealed.

Google "Blue Laws". There are a bunch of them that make the one you ran into in SC look positively reasonable.

The laws about when you can and can't purchase liquor in CT are more related to laws to protect the status of mom and pop liquor stores. They fought to have liquor sales end at 8:00 PM so that they could go home at a reasonable time. (Most of them are in their stores from opening to closing). Grocery stores, which can only sell beer - again a concession to the mom & pops cover their beer to indicate that it is not available for sale.

Bloomfield was the last town in CT to be a "dry" town - no sales of alchohol of any kind - not even in restaurants. I think it was late 70's early 80's when they voted to allow liquor sales.

[janradder.livejournal.com]

Wow. I really had no idea.

[xjenavivex.livejournal.com]

funny the blue laws we have around here are more in line with the hooch

[janradder.livejournal.com]

That was my impression of blue laws (and prior experience).