(Note, the point of this post is well towards the end, but I got on a rant that I’ve been meaning to post for a while, and it got a little out of hand, skip to the end if you’re in a hurry, read it all if you’d like more of a laugh.)

When I first moved to Minnesota from Iowa, I had a jolting experience.  I was out of beer and wanted to go pick some up.  I went to a liquor store.  It was closed.  So, I went to another, which was also closed.  So, I went to a grocery store, but I couldn’t find the beer section.  I asked someone at the check out.  They said they didn’t sell beer there.  So, I went to a gas station.  By this point I was pretty annoyed, but was happy to find that they did have beer.  Though the cooler was locked (with a bike lock around the handle to the shelf inside, thus forcing the door to the cooler to stay open – not really important to the story, but it seemed weird to me at the time).  So, I asked the girl at the counter.  She mumbled something to the effect of “isthreetwo.”

“Um, yeah, a twelve pack of Budweiser if you have it.”

“Yaknowisthreetwo?”

“Um, sure.”

So, I got back to my apartment that Sunday evening (oh, did I mention that it was Sunday?) and searched online to figure out what this, “three two,” was that the clerk was referring to as I was drinking my beer, which didn’t seem quite right.  I found that when it comes to liquor laws, I’ve practically moved to Utah.  You can’t buy alcohol on Sunday.  You can’t buy alcohol at any place that sells groceries.  But you can sell beer that is 3.2% alcohol or less at a gas station on Sunday to unsuspecting recent transplants, which is a cruel joke which made me think about moving back to Iowa if that’s the kind of thing they pull up here.  (deep breath)

Now, as often happens when you have ridiculous laws, there are ridiculous workarounds.  So, a grocery store can’t sell alcohol, right?  Well, you can have two stores set up next to each other, in the same building even, sharing a glass wall and a name, one selling groceries, and the other selling alcohol, as long as the check outs are separate and there’s a solid wall or a space between them (I think).

For instance, Trader Joe’s (awesome) in St. Louis Park has a Trader Joe’s grocery store, and five feet away they have a Trader Joe’s beer and wine store.  Seen here, Trader Joe’s sign to the left = liquor store, Trader Joe’s sign to the right = grocery store.  Legal.

Another example?  Surdyk’s Liquor and Cheese Shop.  What’s that?  Cheese and Liquor in the same place?  Criminals!!!  Nope.  But wait, it’s one building, with one sign!!! Crooks!!! Nope, two doors.  Legal.

But still, no alcohol on Sunday, no matter how many doors you have.

Because Jesus rose from the dead that day, and separation of church and state is strong here on the frozen tundra.

Wait, scratch that.

No alcohol sales on Sunday, because it’s the 102,804th seven day anniversary of the day that the Catholic church picked arbitrarily / symbolically many, many years after the event to commemorate Jesus rising from the dead, not to mention making a symbolic break from Judaism’s Sabbath, while still coinciding with pagan rebirth/fertility celebrations.  Can’t you at least stock pile alcohol on Saturday for that?!?!?!  Screw separation of church and state, Jesus became a freaking zombie for your sins – buy alcohol on Saturday, not Sunday.  Isn’t the link obvious?  I mean, if you’re really a heathen, you can drive to Wisconsin if you forgot to stock up on Saturday.  They sell beer on Sundays there (sinners!!!).  At gas stations (blaspheme!!!).  With only one door.  Insanity, I know.

It’s even in the Bible, and, apparently, therefore the Constitution.  Ah yes, in Matthew 3: mumblemumblemumble it says:

After my death, the Norwegians shall go forth from their homelands and settle in a far off place.  They shall govern an area roughly bounded by the Red River, the St Croix River, the Mississippi River, Lake Superior, 43° 34′N Latitude, and variety of lakes near Canada.  There, from roughly one thousand, nine-hundred years after my death, for at least 90 years, they shall prohibit the sale, but not consumption, of any fermented liquids on the day of the week on which I rise from the dead.

Upon hearing this, the apostles were uneasy.  “You’re not going to eat our brains, are you?” they said unto him.  And Jesus walked up a mountain.

</rant>

But really people, there’s not much of anything that will make me say Wisconsin is better than anywhere else (as both an Iowan and a Minnesotan (still doesn’t feel right calling myself that), I’m obligated to make fun of Wisconsin where ever convenient), but this will make me say it.  Wisconsin is better than Minnesota on liquor sales laws.

The important part:

With the economy in the toilet, the state government’s budget is also going to crap.  Minnesota has a very “progressive” (hate that term) tax code, which lends itself making the state government being flush with money in good times, and massively in the hole on downturns.  So, law makers are looking for places to fill the holes.  And where do you get money?  Tax sin goods.

There is now a bill in the Minnesota legislature to allow alcohol sales on Sunday in Minnesota.

I give you, HF0155.

It’s to allow alcohol sales on Sunday, and give the tax revenue to child social service.  Won’t you think of the children.  You don’t hate children, do you?  Needy children at that.  Not supporting alcohol sales on Sunday in Minnesota is the equivalent of kicking an orphan in the face.  There, I said it.

Now find your representatives and let them know that you want to be able to buy beer on Sunday, or this could be Minnesota’s future, forever:

(bonus, it’s Slovenian)