Alcoholic beverages sold for off-premise consumption can only be sold in licensed package stores. No one is allowed to own more than three stores that sell alcohol. State law puts sharp quotas on the number of liquor stores, bars, and restaurants permitted in every town, a formula carefully based on population. Holiday and Sunday sales are limited. In fact, we’re not even permitted to have happy hours. Free drinks and discounted prices are flatly illegal.
This is because of the former Blue Laws that the Puritans put down in the 1620's because most of the Puritans were supposed to have their eyes and ears with God at all times, and not engage in frivolity such as liquor consumption. Many of the Blue Laws have been struck down, but only since the mid 1980s. Liquor stores have only been allowed to open on Sundays since 2005 or so.
This brings me to the debate of the soon-to-be-dead gambling bill. I've been wavering between being for it and being against it, but now I'm solidly against it. Governor Deval Patrick should not only veto the bill, he should be commended for it at the risk of losing his support from unions and others.
This is because Puritanism is still alive and well in Massachusetts.
We have way too many finger waggers, nags, wrist wringers and such who feel that any kind of fun should be eliminated or strictly controlled in the wake of some kind of fake moral enlightenment. Liquor and alcohol is a great example: keeping such a "vice" away through high price and scarcity makes the ones who are disturbed by its effects (even when people drink responsibly) soothes whatever guilt and bias they might have towards this vice. The same is true with cigarettes, food, and gasoline - self-styled moralists figure that the unwashed masses are not "enlightened" enough and must have these items made difficult to procure for "the greater good."
(In my honest opinion, the greater good would love to give these self-styled moralists a nice hard slap in the face, followed by a nice hard boot to where God split ya.)
If the Legislature were a more honest, less self-interested group, they would have expanded the bill to include as many resort casinos and slot parlors as they would allow without the worry of some group screaming that Massachusetts' moral fiber would decay at a ridiculous rate. There would be no scare tactics of prostitution or people wasting their entire paychecks on slots or children being abandoned in their cars. The Legislators would have no problem with the money coming in and distribute it evenly, rather than try to corner the money for their own town, city or ward.
Even if the casino bill passed, I can imagine the kind of "gambling" we'd get if it went through - it would be regulated just as tightly and stiffly as alcohol is today, along with a mix of gimmicks such as environmental standards, limits on play, money and alcohol consumption, no ATM machines or ATM machines with very high access fees, and bans on any kind of comps, credit and the like.
When Puritanism dances with Curley-style parochialism, what you get are political hacks, self-styled moral activists, and others killing something that may or may not have had promise, but no one dared to try because they were afraid they'd offend the wrong people. The writer of the article sums everything up nicely, and you can easily substitute "gambling" for "alcohol":
What we really need is a culture that celebrates the wise use of alcohol rather than a body of laws whose aim is to make us feel guilty.
It would certainly prove that we cut all the laws of Puritanism but six, who were forced into service as pallbearers.
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