Beer on Sunday

This business about the Sunday ban on bottled alcohol sales is back in the news. The law, a remnant from the colonial era, remains a simmering inconvenience for some weekend shoppers but is not significant enough to warrant the effort required to change it, at least in Indiana.

It looks as though repealing the outdated state law, which prohibits alcohol sales in grocery and liquor stores – but not in restaurants and bars – on Sundays, might be gaining support among general election voters, according to an October poll conducted by the Indianapolis Star and WTHR.

It’s a big maybe, though. Voters are still about evenly split, 46 percent favor changing it, 45 don’t – but the split marks a slight change from two years ago when 50 percent favored the ban.

Let’s be honest.

In the big picture, despite the economic impact of such a sales ban on the second-busiest shopping day of the week, the ban on Sunday alcohol sales is probably the least of our worries.

Nevertheless, some in Indianapolis hint at the possibility that the issue might be up for debate next year in the Indiana General Assembly. However, Gov. Mitch Daniels said he has no position on the matter and will follow the General Assembly’s lead.

There shouldn’t even be a debate. This law is silly, and I’d be interested to know on what grounds so many voters favor keeping the law as is, other than economic ones – some think the law protects small business owners from larger grocers and convenience stores – which I’m rather skeptical of anyway.

Some of the limits – on election days, for example – are rooted somewhere between public good and common sense.

The Sunday ban is not one of them.

There is the convenience issue, of course. And sales bans are bad for Indiana businesses.

But it’s the constant reminder that our state government can be an incorrigible dinosaur in general, and the religious insinuations of the law in particular irk me. Almost as irksome is the way it kind of prevents getting alcohol. It’s a half-assed, shoddy law that doesn’t even seem invested in its aim, allowing the truly dedicated to drive on by the liquor store to the bar.

I respect holy days and the right to have them, but please enlighten me as to how this law makes sense on any level. It remains, I imagine, mostly from the incredible power of legislative inertia. If this debate happens next year – my instincts, for what they’re worth, tell me that it won’t – the law will likely remain as is regardless. I’m sure there will be all manner of inflammatory discussion in area news outlets, with associated commenting on the departure of traditional values and moral erosion.

How tiring and irrelevant.

Similar colonial “blue” laws – bans on Sunday haircuts for example – have long been repealed.

Indiana, get with the times and the rest of country.

Let’s repeal the law.