Rural communities in Georgia vote to keep Sunday dry

After years of debate over whether religiously motivated blue laws banning alcohol sales on Sundays should stay or go, Georgia politicians finally decided to let the people vote on the issue. A New York Times article reports the results: voting on a city by city and county by county basis rather than on a statewide one, 105 of 127 communities voted to repeal the Sunday restriction. While Atlanta, Savannah, and most urban areas celebrated the result, in contrast, the remaining 21 or so rural communities did not: they voted to keep Sundays dry.

As noted in a recent blog post, "blue laws" apparently still exist to prohibit or restrict certain activities on Sundays such as hunting, shopping, and of course, selling alcohol. The debate over laws banning Sunday alcohol sales reveal tensions between urban and rural communities, as well as between big retail businesses and smaller local package and liquor stores.

Blue laws have been most common across the Bible Belt, particularly in deeply religious rural regions such as Elbert County, in northeast Georgia. For 70 percent of the 2,400 voters in Elbert County, their resistance to ending Sunday alcohol sales restrictions was primarily for spiritual reasons. One member of the Forest Hill Assembly of God Church states, "The Bible says no to strong drink, and I'm proud that people around here agree."

Beyond religious reasons, there are other reasons rural communities want to keep Sundays dry. A church pianist thinks it's a matter of keeping good morals; Sundays are for going to church, not for going out to buy alcohol. And for Janice Dickerson, a Christian bookstore owner, it's about safety. She lost her 6-year-old son in a drunk driving accident.

But over the decades, urban regions have increasingly struck down blue laws because they considered them anachronistic or unfriendly to business. Until the recent vote, Connecticut, Indiana, and Georgia were the only states that banned Sunday sales of all alcohol (beer, wine, and liquor). As the governor of Connecticut stated in support of overturning the ban, it's a matter of retail fairness. The ban is anti-competitive, and "unfairly prevents businesses from meeting consumer demand on Sunday."

Moreover, with budget deficit numbers as high as $27 billion (Texas), $3.5 billion (Connecticut), and $1 billion (Indiana), the states could use the revenue. The Distilled Spirits Council of the United States, a trade group and leader of the repeal effort nationwide, cites statistics showing that "each state that approved Sunday sales between 2002 and 2008 experienced at least a 5 percent increase in annual tax revenue."

But are the economic benefits really as straightforward as they seem? A surprising source of opposition, liquor store owners, has staunchly opposed the repeal effort by forming powerful lobbies to block potential state legislation. In Indiana, repeal opponents claim expanded sales would generate little new tax revenue. Additionally, repealing the law would allow grocery stores, convenience stores, and other retailers with more lax age regulations to sell liquor. This, in turn, promotes sales to minors, underage drinking, and drunk driving.

A more compelling argument from liquor store owners is that big business retailers would drive them out of business. They cite a study that shows expanded alcohol sales help bigger retailers. Smaller stores simply can't afford the higher operating costs of opening on Sundays, and repealing the blue laws would put up to 25 percent of Indiana's package stores out of business. Big grocery market businesses won't bear additional costs because they are already open on Sundays.

While in some ways the movement to repeal blue laws can be framed as an economic issue, others consider it primarily a religious or moral one. Georgia's "patchwork of alcohol laws" alone is proof that rural and urban communities retain starkly contrasting views regarding the matter. In the meantime, voting county by county and letting communities decide on the issue might be the best compromise.