A few blogs back, I talked about Calvert Liquors and its importance when I first moved to the Washington area. When I first arrived in the area, buying hard liquor in the state of Virginia was complicated and frustrating. It could only be purchased in a state owned “ABC” store. Those stores had a counter across the front, and rows of gray metal shelves filling the remainder of the floor space. You had to ask the person behind the counter to get you what you wanted — no looking to see what they had, or touching the bottles — even if the employees had been friendly (in fairness, a few were) it wasn’t a very peasant shopping experience. And forget about going to a restaurant and having a cocktail before dinner or with your meal.
After prohibition ended, Virginia authorized retail stores to sell beer and wine, but retained direct control over the sale of hard liquor. The General Assembly set up what is today the Virginia Alcoholic Beverage Control (ABC) Authority and gave it the exclusive right to sell hard liquor directly to the public.
Until restaurants were authorized, in 1968, to sell liquor by the drink (one glass at a time) the only legal hard liquor sales in Virginia were bottles handed by ABC clerks to customers standing on the other side of the counters in state-owned stores. (The one glass at a time rule was interesting — if you were in a restaurant having a drink, and ordered another one, the first drink had to be finished, and the server had to take the first drink off the table before placing the second drink on the table!!) Shortly after the state authorized liquor by the drink, the Virginia Administrative Code limited advertising that used the words Bar Room, Saloon, Speakeasy, and Happy Hour — hoping to minimize the potential for excessive drinking.
Virginia now permits billboard advertising of alcohol, but billboards may not depict persons consuming alcoholic beverages, may not use cartoon characters, nor use persons who have not attained the legal drinking age as models or actors. The billboards may not be placed within 500 feet of a church or synagogue, a public, private, or parochial school, college or university, a public or private playground or similar recreational facility, or residentially zoned property.
The only competition for the sale of bottles of hard liquor in Virginia comes from moonshiners selling untaxed and illegal liquor, often in one-galloon plastic jugs and even the classic Mason jar.
The hours of operation, the brands sold, the price of different products and the locations of ABC stores are determined by the state — not the local authorities.
I mentioned that Virginia only permitted liquor by the drink in food establishments beginning 1968 —this move eliminated the “brown bag” requirement that customers join a private club and bring their own bottle to the restaurant (typically in a brown paper bag) in order to enjoy a drink before a meal.
It’s interesting that in 2020, when Governor Northam issued Executive Order 53 closing all dining and congregation areas in restaurants, dining establishments, food courts, breweries, microbreweries, distilleries, wineries, tasting rooms, and farmers markets during the COVID-19 pandemic, he declared beer, wine, and liquor stores to be “essential retail businesses” which could stay open.
I think that laws and regulations that regulate liquor must use the same algorithm that airlines use to determine air fares…..
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