Wine in Kentucky

I’ve alluded to it a bunch of times so I suppose it’s time to tell you what I’ve been talking about. I live in Kentucky, the state that Prohibition forgot. Apparently, Kentucky and Utah are the only two states left in the country that have this sort of restrictive laws when it comes to the sale of alcoholic beverages.

While I’m not sure of all the details of the laws, since they appear to be rather complicated, the basic effects of the laws are:

* You can’t purchase any alcoholic beverages on Sunday.
* You cannot receive alcoholic beverages by mail order.
* Apparently (I’m not sure about this one) you can’t bring alcoholic beverages into the state unless you have a license. A variation of this one that I have heard is that you can bring in up to 3 gallons at a time, which is the version that I like better, since it allows me to bring a few bottles back from California when I go out there.

Well, not being the type to take it lying down when presented with irrational law, I wrote to the govenor of Kentucky, asking him what was the deal with silly laws like that, and, more to the point, how long until we realize that Al Capone died, and Prohibition was repealed? I received a very nice and courteous note back from the office of the governor, explaining in rather flowery and obfuscated terms that the main reason was money. Well, he did not say quite that, but that was what it translated to. Turns out that they can make more tax revenue if they do things in this manner. No explanation was offered on the any-day-but-Sunday thing.

There is some light on the horizon, at least if I try to be really optimistic about things. First, Florida apparently just repealed a bunch of laws that looked fairly similar. And second, perhaps more importantly, Kentucky law just changed to permit out-of-state distributors to bring goods into the state, where out-of-state apparently means that they do not have to have a license issued by the State of Kentucky, but just a valid license from somewhere.