Want to hear even more crazy Texas liquor rules. Each town can vote to be "wet" or "dry". I live in rural county 1/2 between Lubbock, TX and Clovis,NM. There 6 small farming towns in the county the largest has a population of 7500 +/-. We are very much in the "Bible Belt". My home town has (population 750) has 4 churches and a Christian retreat center.

The largest town voted to go "wet" a few years ago and everybody said that it was the end of the world as we knew it. They put in a couple of liquor stores, then a couple stores started selling beer, then a restaurant started beer. Now everybody is selling it and they are making more money they ever thought they would and the world is still turning. Yes they have some problems but not any more then before.

I lived in Goldthwaite Texas for a while. It was dry so no alcohol of any kind was sold. They would keep trying to vote to allow alcohol but the word was that the old coots in town wanted and excuse to get out of the house to go drink. I think they decided to go wet after I left.

Towns can vote to be wet or dry, I think counties can, and also judicial districts can vote to be wet or dry.

The judicial district next to Goldthwaite voted to go wet. A guy set up shop right at the edge of the district outside a town called Priddy.

There were two buildings there. One would be open during the week which sold hard liquor, beer and wine. On Sundays that building would close because any place that sold hard liquor couldn't do business on Sunday. Instead the building next door would open - they only sold beer and wine at that "store" and so could legally be open on Sunday.

And that news article is a bit incorrect you can buy alcohol on Sunday but just beer/wine. And Liquor stores which sell hard liquor can't open and just sell beer and wine, they have to be closed. Hence the two buildings in Priddy.

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Originally posted by car541:
Car dealers are also closed on sundays in Texas by law, and the dealer associations want it that way.

Semantics, but the Sunday closing laws in regards to auto dealers, is that they must be closed 1 day of the week, not specifically Sunday. We've got a few here in Houston that are open Sunday & closed Monday (sales).

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Originally posted by flashguy:
The situation in Dallas used to be even more bizarre--within Dallas County areas were either "wet" (booze allowed) or "dry" depending on the voting precinct. There were irregular-shaped patches of city all over that were wet and others that were dry--one side of the street allowed liquor and the other side didn't.

Learned of this this week. A new HEB just opened in the Heights area of Houston. Apparently, they were instrumental in getting the Heights district 'wet'. I didn't realize, prior to that, that a section within a city could be designated 'dry'.

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Originally posted by mcrimm:

quote:

Originally posted by Gustofer:
MT liquor stores are state owned (and taxed thusly ). They are all closed on Sunday.

Actually they are not owned by the state. The state controls the delivery of liquor to the stores and the stores wholesale to the bars.

Correct. I misspoke. Privately owned nowadays, but state controlled.

Arkansas still has plenty of dry counties, especially in more southern and eastern areas of the state.

Alcohol also couldn't be sold on Sundays until a few years ago, when the state law was amended to allow cities to vote whether to allow alcohol sales on Sundays. Luckily, I happen to live in a city who voted to allow Sunday sales shortly thereafter. (I believe it was the first, or one of the first, in the state.)

Prior to that, you had to drive ~2 hours round trip to the giant liquor store just across the Missouri state line if you wanted to buy alcohol on Sundays. Or just go to a bar, which were free to serve alcohol on Sundays.

Here in SoDak liquour sales are allowed seven days a week. Local ordinances my be more restrictive however.