The Indiana Legislature has chosen over the years to protect liquor stores, allowing them the exclusive rights to sell cold beer by the multi-beer container. And now a federal judge in Indiana confirms that the General Assembly can do just that.
This past week, U.S. District Judge Richard L. Young ruled that Indiana has legitimately drawn a line by only allowing liquor stores to sell cold beer, but not other stores.
Yes, consumers can go into a bar or a restaurant, even on a Sunday, and buy a cold beer by the drink, but nowhere in Indiana can you pick up cold beer by the six pack or the case, on any day, except in a liquor store.
The convenience store industry had filed suit, arguing that the cold beer law is “irrational, discriminatory and outdated,” but Young wrote, “Indiana’s legislative classifications, which serve to limit the outlets for immediately consumable cold beer, is rationally related to the legitimate goals of Indiana’s alcoholic beverage laws. Opening this market to others without restriction is not.”
The judge said expanding the sale of cold beer beyond liquor stores, taverns and restaurants would make the state’s alcoholic beverage laws tougher to enforce by creating more outlets.
This newspaper has never felt strongly one way or the other about prohibited Sunday sales or about cold beer sales, but it seems obvious to us that one day soon, the issue of cold beer, as well as the sale of any alcohol on Sunday, is going to catch up with Indiana — that is, as soon as consumers realize how far Indiana is behind the times and they demand of their legislators that they be treated just as beer drinkers in every other state.
That’s right, Indiana is the only state in the nation that still prohibits Sunday retail sales. Indeed, Indiana’s Sunday prohibition on retail sales dates all the way back to Prohibition.
Also, critics of the law argue that Indiana is losing out on tax revenues that could be collected on Sunday sales.
While the convenience stores say the law is unfair, the liquor store owners argue that allowing Sunday sales would hurt them economically. Normally closed on Sundays, they would have to open and bring in a sales staff.
Meanwhile, potential Sunday customers might instead buy their beer at grocery stores as they shop for food.
And for now, the liquor stores have the ear of the lawmakers.
We don’t expect it to last. But in the meantime, Hoosiers who want to enjoy a beer on Sunday still will have to remember to stock up on Saturday.