presley@mhuxj.UUCP (Joe Presley) (05/18/84)
I may be opening up a can of worms, but the talk about Demon Alcohol got me thinking about Blue Laws in general. A friend of mine was driving his family cross-country and on a Sunday (I can't remember the state) tried to get milk for his kid. The sale of milk was prohibited, but he was able to get cigarettes. In high school in Arkansas, I was reading through the statutes and found a law which prohibited the existence of soda pop machines within 1/4 mile of a church: interestingly enough, our church had a machine in its basement. -- Joe Presley (mhuxj!presley, ihnp4!j.presley)
ron@brl-vgr.ARPA (Ron Natalie <ron>) (05/18/84)
In Maryland the state law used to be that no store could be open on Sunday with more than seven employees. This means that some stores prune themselves down for sunday operations, some just stay closed (and there is no package liquor sales on Sunday either). This was relegated to the local jurisdictions a while back so some areas have them and some don't. Every year the large department stores in Baltimore stay open on Sundays in the weeks before Christmas in violent defiance of the law. By the way, an interesting point that was brought out when the laws were abolished in Prince Georges County was that the store clerks themselves were fighting for the Sunday shift. This was due to a differential pay, a shorter working day (they don't stay open as late on Sunday) and personal preference. -Ron