Booze-less Ballots

If you’re planning on throwing an Election Night party, you better stock up on your booze today because it’ll be hard to come by tomorrow. South Carolina and Kentucky are the only remaining states who have alcohol bans on Election Day.

Every four years, discussion of this archaic law begins to pick up, but this was the first I’ve ever heard of it. The Yahoo article that brought this to my attention, didn’t provide enough details so I did some hardcore research (read: Googled it and asked people on Twitter) to see what exactly this “ban” entails.

ProhibitionRepeal.com says South Carolina bans the sale of alcohol at “restaurants, bars and liquor stores.” That would seem to mean all forms alcohol – beer, wine and liquor – cannot be sold anywhere, not even bars.

LegalBeer.com only listed liquor sales as being banned. Meanwhile Wikipedia claimed there were no sales at liquor stores only.

At this point, it was only clear that liquor stores would be closed. I decided to consult the Twitter machine.

Everyone I spoke with agreed that liquor stores would be closed tomorrow. After that, opinions varied. Here are some of the more helpful responses:

• @carly_jane: “In KY, it applied to bars/restaurants. They can start serving alcohol once the polls close.”
• @DirtbagRocks: “I swear I’ve served on election days in the past, but don’t know if its just not enforced.”

Although I could never get direct confirmation (and to be honest, I didn’t try all that hard), I did see that some restaurants and bars are advertising parties, drinks specials, etc for Election Day. It appears the ban is only on RETAIL purchases.

Yes, I dedicated an entire entry to my roundabout and lazy way of getting an answer instead of just telling you it upfront. I had to wait, I only figured it was fair you did too.

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