Published June 1, 2010
Out of beer (Chris Devers/Flickr)
Did you try to celebrate the long weekend yesterday by picking up a six-pack at your neighborhood liquor store? If you’re like me, you scratched your head when you got turned away.
Turns out Massachusetts bans liquor sales on Memorial Day. It’s just one of the commonwealth’s arcane blue laws, which might have made sense in the Puritan days, but which now just make it hard to drink on the days you most want to — weekends and holidays.
I got a little lost trying to make sense of it all, so I called Ralph Sacramone, executive director of the state’s Alcoholic Beverages Control Commission. Here’s the rub.
You can’t buy booze on (some) holidays:
- Election Day (national, state, municipal, during polling hours)
- Memorial Day
- Thanksgiving Day (except at hotels, restaurants, taverns and clubs)
- Christmas Day
- The day after Christmas, if Christmas fell on Sunday
On the eve of those forbidden days, package stores can stay open an extra half-hour, till 11:30 p.m.
YOU CAN SWIG ON SUNDAYS, with some exceptions. It was only six years ago, in April 2004, that Massachusetts lifted a statewide ban on alcohol sales on Sundays. Mitt Romney, the (Mormon) governor, signed what was spun as “An Act Relative To Investments In Emerging Technologies To Promote Job Creation, Economic Stability And Competitiveness In The Massachusetts Economy.” In other words, the Let’s Drink On Sunday Act.
Still, to sell on Sundays, businesses must purchase a special license. And alcohol can’t be sold before 12 noon on the sabbath, which, yes, the commonwealth officially designates as a day of rest. (Interestingly, an employee cannot be punished for refusing to sell on a Sunday.)
And if you were hoping to pick up your liquor at a pharmacy — and it’s Sunday or any state holiday — you’ll need a prescription. Hey, doc, I have a wicked hangover, but it’s Evacuation Day. Can I get a prescription for a Bloody Mary?
And if all else fails, there’s always Manischewitz. An overriding exception allows Jewish businessowners who observe a Saturday sabbath and close from sundown Friday to sundown Saturday, to sell kosher wine on Sundays if it’s certified and labeled as such — but only if kosher meat or fish is also sold.
On any given day, businesses need a special license to sell alcohol between 12 midnight and 2 a.m. or to allow dancing during those hours, which may explain why so many bars around here close at midnight.
But wait, there’s more. The commonwealth recently has begun regulating “happy hour” in bars and restaurants. In essence, it’s forbidden. A Massachusetts business cannot:
- Charge lower prices for beverages during certain times of day (except at private functions)
- Offer free drinks to patrons
- Serve more than two drinks to a customer at a time
- Offer an “open bar” for a fixed price
- Encourage or allow drinking games
Finally, it’s illegal to dance in a club on Sundays, unless it’s folk or square dancing. Yes, really. But if you can’t help yourself, just pay the $20 fine.
It’s all complicated and at times frustrating. But hey, you could live in one of the Bay State’s completely dry towns, most of them on Martha’s Vineyard: Alford, Chilmark, Dunstable, Gosnold, Hawley, Montgomery, Mt. Washington, Tisbury, West Tisbury and Westhampton.