What Time Can You Buy Beer In New York State?

Sale of Alcoholic Beverages Off-premises (liquor store or retailer) liquor and wine sales are prohibited between midnight and 8 AM, and until 9 AM on Sundays. On-premises (bar or lounge) sales are prohibited on weekdays between 4 AM and 8 AM, and Sundays between 4 AM and 10 AM.

What hours can you buy beer in New York State?

How Late Can Alcohol Be Sold in NYC? The hours that a restaurant, bar or retail store can legally serve alcohol until are determined by the Alcoholic Beverage Control Law (“ABCL”). However, the outer limits set by the ABCL are trumped by the rules of the county in which the establishment or store is located.

Additionally, the Community Board or local municipality that has jurisdiction over the establishment can further limit the restaurant or bar’s closing hours. The New York State Liquor Authority (or “SLA”) allows a liquor/wine store to open and sell alcohol to the public Monday through Saturday until midnight.

On Sundays, a liquor/wine store can sell only from noon until 9:00 p.m. Grocery stores and drug stores cannot sell beer on Sundays from 3:00 a.m. until noon. Also, a liquor/wine store is not allowed to sell alcohol on Christmas Day. The Authority allows a restaurant or bar to serve alcohol to the public seven nights a week until 4:00 a.m.

1. Last call” can be until 4:00 a.m., and the “hard closing” must happen by 4:30 a.m.
2. However, a storeowner or a bar/restaurant owner must be cognizant of the closing hours dictated by the county it is located in.
3. Although the Authority allows for service up until 4:00 a.m.
4. At bars and restaurants, a county may limit those hours.

Many counties only allow service until 2:00 a.m. Another wrinkle that bar and restaurant owners must take into account are the stipulations entered into with the Community Board or the board of a local municipality that has jurisdiction over it. Typically, these stipulations are decided at a meeting between the board and the applicant.

• At this meeting, community members voice their concerns about the incoming business, and try to work out a compromise on operating hours that work for everyone.
• The owner must honor the stipulations decided upon at the meeting.
• To ensure that these stipulations are incorporated into the liquor license application, a copy is sent to the SLA.

If you’d like to learn more about the Liquor Licensing and Permitting of your new restaurant or bar and ways that Helbraun Levey can help navigate the process here: or contact our Founding Partner, to get information from our firm. : How Late Can Alcohol Be Sold in NYC?

Can you buy beer in the morning in NY?

For consumption on-premises – In New York, for purposes of state law, there are only four hours Monday through Saturday in which alcohol may not be served: 4:00 a.m. to 8:00 a.m. On Sundays the limitation is six hours: 4:00 a.m to 10:00 a.m. This was designed to accommodate both New York City nightlife and late-night workers statewide.

Some upstate areas such as Buffalo, Albany, and Saratoga Springs retain the 4:00 a.m closing time, although individual counties are free to set an earlier “last call.” In Binghamton, this is at 3:00 a.m.; in Syracuse, Plattsburgh, Oneonta, Rochester and Watertown, bars close at 2:00 a.m.; and Elmira, Geneva, and Ithaca, have some of the earliest closing times in the state at 1 a.m.

For a complete list of closing hours by county, see.

Can you buy beer in supermarkets in NY?

Grocery and Drug Store Beer and Wine Product License Grocery and drug stores selling beer, cider, and wine products for consumption in New York State need the appropriate license. These businesses need either the Grocery and Drug Store Beer/Wine Products License or the Grocery Store Beer/Wine Products License.

Can you buy beer at liquor stores in NYC?

Dumb NY Law #1: Stores that Sell Beer Can’t Sell Wine & Liquor – When I first walked into a CVS in California, I was absolutely mesmerized. Giant, gleaming bottles of whisky and vodka were there to greet me at the door. I thought I was seeing something wild and unique – a drugstore that sells liquor! – but in fact, New York is the exception to the rule.

SEE ALSO: The Best HV Ice Cream Shops Open this Winter New York is one of the only states in the country that separates the sale of beer and the sale of wine & liquor. While grocery stores can sell beer, they can’t sell wine and liquor. The same thing goes for liquor stores; they can’t sell beer. and it gets even weirder.

pixelfit /WebTechExperts via Canva pixelfit /WebTechExperts via Canva loading.

Does New York sell alcohol 24 hours?

Off-premises (liquor store or retailer) liquor and wine sales are prohibited between midnight and 8 AM, and until 9 AM on Sundays. On-premises (bar or lounge) sales are prohibited on weekdays between 4 AM and 8 AM, and Sundays between 4 AM and 10 AM.

Can I buy beer at 9 am in NY?

A. Selling Alcohol – Liquor stores can sell spirits beginning at noon on Sunday. Grocery and convenience stores can sell beer and low-proof wine. They can sell beer any time except 3 a.m. to 8 a.m. on Sunday. Some stores sell alcohol for drinking off-site.

They can sell alcohol from 9 a.m. until midnight Monday through Saturday. And from noon to 9 p.m. on Sunday. Bars and restaurants can serve alcohol from 8 a.m. to 4 a.m. Monday through Saturday. They can serve it beginning at 10 a.m. on Sunday. Important is the fact that cities and counties can and do modify some alcohol regulations For example, the townships of Argyle, Berkshire, Caneadea, Clymer, Fremont, Jasper, Lapeer, Neversink and Orwell are dry.

Thus, they permit no sale of alcohol.

What are the blue laws in New York State?

When the Harlem store Palace Liquors opened one particular day this week, it was a moment that some New Yorkers had wanted for more than three centuries. That is because the day it opened was Sunday. New York liquor stores have never before been allowed to open on Sunday.

1. But at Sanchez Liquors farther uptown, the shutters remained drawn.
2. Sunday is the day for resting,” said shopkeeper Francisco Calcaño.
3. Besides, if the store is closed, that means less liquor on the streets on a Sunday, when people are walking with their families.” The long-standing ban on Sunday liquor sales was lifted as part of the state legislature’s budget package.

The lawmakers reasoned that allowing liquor stores to open on Sunday (even though they will have to choose another day to close each week) will mean more alcohol sales, and more taxes and fees for the state’s coffers. Some may think that this finally means an end to what are called the blue laws, which have regulated Americans’ moral behavior, especially what people can or cannot do on a Sunday, since the 17th century.

Things certainly have changed since the time when even a Sunday baseball game was considered immoral – and outlawed. Indeed, the people opposed to allowing liquor to be sold on Sundays seldom even mention the word morality. Governor Pataki vetoed the Sunday liquor sales bill, but it was unlikely that he vetoed the law for moral reasons, especially considering his substitute proposal to raise funds for the city – installing video slot machines in the city’s off track betting parlors.

In any case, the legislature overrode Pataki’s veto. Still, blue laws have not now faded into the quaint past. There are still laws regulating people’s private lives or freedom of choice — and not only ones that are outdated and unenforced. Some would say that there is at least one new one, promoted by our billionaire bachelor mayor — a prohibition on smoking indoors.

HISTORY OF BLUE LAWS New York’s law banning liquor sales on Sunday has its origins in Puritan America and even the Roman Empire. “The earliest indication that I was able to uncover about a specific law prohibiting activity on Sunday comes from the Roman emperor Constantine in the year 321,” said David Laband, author of Blue Laws: The History, Economics, and Politics of Sunday Closing Laws.

The law reads in part, Laband said, “Let all judges, and all city people, and all tradesmen, rest upon the venerable day of the sun.” Regulations against Sunday activities were in place in King Charles the Second’s England, as well as in the seventeenth-century Puritan colonies in America.

Many reference books say that the laws were called “blue” because they were printed on blue paper, but historians have said that the term is more likely to be derived from the use of the word “blue” to mean “rigidly moral.” A 1695 colonial New York blue law read, “Be it therefore enacted that there shall be no traveling, servile laboring and working, shooting, fishing, sporting, playing, horseracing, hunting, or frequenting of tippling houses, or the use of any other unlawful exercises or pastimes, by any of the inhabitants or sojourners within this province, or by any of their slaves or servants, on the Lord’s day.” The punishment for any of these offenses was a fine of six shillings or three hours in the stocks.

Other colonies had even stiffer blue laws. If someone broke Virginia’s Sunday restrictions three times, they faced the death penalty. In colonial Boston, Captain John Kemble was arrested and put in stocks for two hours for kissing his wife on the Sunday that he returned home from three years at sea.

1. In 1789, President George Washington was on his way from Connecticut to attend church in New York when he was charged with a blue law violation for unnecessarily walking or riding on Sunday.
2. In New York, regulations against Sunday activities continued into the next century, as upstate (largely Protestant) Republican lawmakers supported laws that did not make sense for the Jewish and Catholic residents of New York City.

The sale of liquor on Sundays was prohibited, and both professional and amateur baseball games were against the law. By the1890s, “there was a long tradition in the New York legislature of enacting legislation to enforce morality in the city, wrote Christopher Finan in Al Smith: The Happy Warrior, his biography of the1920s governor.

The interference of upstate Republicans in both the administration of New York City and the social life of its citizens was deeply resented.” In 1907, New York City Democrats unsuccessfully introduced two bills in Albany to change the law prohibiting baseball on Sundays. Then-state Assemblyman Al Smith, according to Finan, spoke out against the Sunday ban on the floor of the state legislature, saying that it was better for young men to be playing baseball than “be driven to places where they play “Waltz Me Around Again, Willie.'” In 1917, the New York Giants and Cincinnatti Reds played the first Sunday major league baseball game at the Polo Grounds.

The managers of both teams were arrested for violating the blue laws. Sunday games became legal in New York two years later, but the bar on Sunday liquor sales became an all out ban during prohibition. A new law banning Sunday sales was drafted at the end of the prohibition era, and survived until this month.

• LIQUOR STORES ON SUNDAY The new law doesn’t do away with the state’s blue laws completely.
• New York’s liquor stores may be able to open on Sundays, but will have to close one other day a week.
• Mark Anderson, deputy commissioner of the New York State Liquor Authority, said that in order to enforce the one-day-a-week closing, he expects that each store will need to include the day that they will close each week in their license.

The law will sunset in five years, so Sunday sales may be banned again. It also limits the number of state liquor licenses to the ones currently in place. Grocery stores are still not allowed to sell wine, and can only sell beer on Sundays after noon. Liquor store groups have lobbied on both sides of the issue.

The Distilled Spirits Council of the United States, which lobbied hard for a lift of the Sunday ban in New York, sponsored a study finding that Sunday openings could bring in an extra $26.7 million a year in taxes and fees for New York State, because Sunday has become a big shopping day. “This is all about choices,” said Lisa Hawkins from the Distilled Spirits Council, who once told Business Review that she should have the right to “have margaritas with my fajitas on Sunday night.” Small owner-run liquor stores have often campaigned to keep Sunday closings, saying that they don’t have the staff to open every day, but would be forced to open in order to compete with larger stores.

The new law answers some of their concerns, by mandating that all stores close at least one day a week. Francisco Maracallo, the manager of the Washington Heights store Sandy Liquor, is looking forward to the good sales that he thinks Sunday will bring, and hopes to work out a plan with other liquor stores in the neighborhood, so that each one closes on a different day.

Can you drink beer on the street in New York?

Consumption Alcohol in Street Summons Explanation with Text of Statute — Pink Summons Information By far and away the king of all summonses in New York City is the summons issued for Consumption of Alcohol in the Street. The good news regarding this summons is that, unlike many of the most common summonses issued, it is NOT A CRIME. Consumption of Alcohol in the Street is a non criminal offense.

Can you order beer in NYC?

Is alcohol delivery legal? – Yes, alcohol delivery is legal in the cities and states Minibar Delivery serves. We’ve been helping local stores deliver wine, spirits, and beer for over five years!

Can you buy beer in Walmart in NY?

Are there age restrictions for buying alcohol at Walmart? – Yes. Walmart adheres to all state and federal laws, meaning that in most states, you must be 21 years old or older to purchase alcohol at Walmart.

Can you buy alcohol at grocery stores in NY?

Despite a state commission’s recommendations, New York lawmakers seem unlikely to make substantive changes to a 1934 law that traces to Prohibition. Wegmans, a supermarket chain based in Rochester, spent over $30,000 in May lobbying state lawmakers to allow grocery stores to sell wine. Credit. Casey Steffens for The New York Times In New York, all sorts of things that were once considered illegal are now fair game, like buying marijuana and smoking it in public, or betting on sports right from your cellphone.

1. But what if you wanted to buy wine from a grocery store? Or a bottle of vodka on Sunday morning for an early Bloody Mary? Sorry, no.
2. That’s against the law.
3. For years, state lawmakers have tried to tackle New York’s antiquated liquor laws, with halting success.
4. Until last year, for example, liquor stores were barred from opening on Christmas Day.

And it wasn’t until 2016 that lawmakers passed the so-called boozy-brunch bill, which allowed restaurants to serve alcohol before noon on Sunday. But attempts to make the alcoholic beverage industry more competitive and friendlier to consumers have typically faced opposition from recalcitrant parties that stand to lose money, and resistance from lawmakers concerned about easing the sale of alcohol.

The state has created three commissions in recent years, the first two in 2009 and 2016, to make recommendations to update the state’s laws. Most were never adopted, The renewed focus on New York’s alcohol statutes stems from a 192-page report issued in May by the third commission, which Gov. Kathy Hochul and the State Legislature established last year to propose changes to the state’s Alcoholic Beverage Control, or A.B.C., law.

The law, enacted in 1934, has long been criticized as outdated and riddled with outlandish vestiges of Prohibition. At first glance, some of the changes that state lawmakers are now considering for modernizing the laws might seem like straightforward, common-sense reforms that would benefit consumers.

One would allow New Yorkers to buy wine at grocery stores, Another would permit liquor stores to open before noon on Sunday. A third would let bars buy bottles of liquor directly from a liquor store if they run out on a busy night, instead of waiting until the next shipment from a supplier. But efforts to alter the liquor laws seem unlikely to succeed this year, unable to overcome powerful, but familiar headwinds: the obdurate opposition of an alcohol industry that has used its clout in the State Capitol to preserve the status quo and protect its bottom line for decades.

As the 2023 legislative session comes to a close, the proposed changes to the liquor laws have prompted a last-minute dash of frenzied lobbying from liquor stores, distributors and distillers. Bars and restaurants have also jumped into the fray, trying to loosen rules to make it easier to obtain liquor licenses.

And grocery stores and supermarkets, led by chains like Wegmans, have joined together to achieve an elusive goal: to permit the sale of wine at their stores, reigniting a perennial skirmish against mom-and-pop liquor stores that see the legislation as a threat to their very existence. “Somehow this becomes this huge controversy because New York is one of the few states that you can’t go into a supermarket and buy wine, even though you can buy beer,” said State Senator Liz Krueger, a Manhattan Democrat who introduced the bill to allow the sale of wine in grocery stores.

“The underlying issue is that you’ve got a monopoly control of wholesale distribution of liquor in this state, and the three wholesalers who control all liquor distribution think that this disadvantages them,” she said. Image Senator Liz Krueger introduced a bill to allow New York to join 40 other states that allow grocery stores to sell wine.

Credit. Cindy Schultz for The New York Times Wegmans, a supermarket chain based in Rochester, has spent over $30,000 in May alone pushing the measure, which liquor stores have fended off every time it has emerged in Albany over the past four decades. The two main alcohol distributors in the state, Southern Glazer’s Wine & Spirits and Empire Merchants, have collectively spent at least $120,000 since the year began on lobbying state officials, disclosure records show.

The families that own Southern Glazer’s, which is the largest liquor distributor in the United States and based in Florida, also contributed at least $25,000 to Ms. Hochul’s campaign last year. “When you change one area to benefit a business in the industry, it oftentimes has a negative and unacceptable adverse impact on another sector in the industry,” said Assemblyman Harry Bronson, a Rochester Democrat who recently introduced legislation to change the A.B.C.

• Law. “We have to be very cautious here.
• The reason we have these laws is because we want to highly regulate the sale and distribution of alcoholic beverages.” The 16-member commission appointed last year was, like its predecessors, formed with the goal of finding common ground to break years of logjam in Albany.

It was composed largely of representatives of the alcohol industry, including a winery owner, a senior manager at Anheuser-Busch and the head of a liquor store trade group, and the restaurant industry. The commission failed to reach consensus on some of the most contentious issues, such as allowing grocery stores to sell wine.

But, through a majority vote, the panel issued a report containing 18 relatively modest recommendations, from clerical changes for streamlining liquor-license applications to eliminating a restriction that prohibits restaurants and bars from serving liquor within 200 feet of a school or house of worship.

It is now up to lawmakers to decide whether to turn the proposed changes into legislation. The most momentum for change appears to be in the State Senate, where James Skoufis, a Hudson Valley Democrat and the loudest proponent of reforming the A.B.C. law, introduced a bill that incorporated the commission’s recommendations.

It has advanced out of committee. “The most important stakeholder here is the consumer,” Mr. Skoufis said in an interview. “There’s no reason, for example, that a consumer shouldn’t be able to go into a liquor store and get some mixers and bitters while they’re there, as opposed to having to make a separate stop at the grocery store down the street.” (His bill would loosen limits on the items liquor stores can sell besides alcohol.) The path is less certain in the State Assembly, where companion legislation introduced by Mr.

Bronson is not expected to get a floor vote this year. Image Senator James Skoufis has introduced a bill that would broaden the types of items that a liquor store could sell. Credit. Slaven Vlasic/Getty Images for Media Assets, Inc. Ms. Hochul, a Democrat, has not shared her view of the proposed changes publicly.

• Members of her staff met in May with industry stakeholders, including commission members.
• State officials seemed interested in reforming the liquor law but appeared more inclined to tackle the issue next year, according to a participant who requested anonymity to discuss a private meeting.
• Hazel Crampton-Hays, a spokeswoman for Ms.

Hochul, said the governor was committed to “flexibility and reforms” in the industry, noting her success last year in legalizing the sale of to-go drinks, “We are reviewing these recommendations and continuing to engage with the Legislature and stakeholders as we work to modernize the industry,” Ms.

• Crampton-Hays said.
• Because the commission’s recommendations are not binding, they have led to an unusual dynamic that threatens to undermine any action: Some of the same industry players who prepared the report are lobbying against changes it proposed.
• The wild card is those forces that were on the commission, who didn’t like the results of the commission and are now actively lobbying against things that they didn’t like,” said Paul Zuber, the executive vice president of the Business Council, a lobbying group for businesses in the state.

Mr. Zuber was part of the commission. The commission’s recommendations included allowing business owners to own more than one wine or liquor store. Currently, New York is one of only a few states that prohibits liquor store owners from owning more than one establishment, a restriction that does not apply to other retail businesses, including restaurants, laundromats and hardware stores.

1. The Business Council and national liquor chains like Total Wine & More, which now has only one store on Long Island, are pushing to expand the number of stores an owner can have, arguing that it would increase competition and allow entrepreneurs to expand their businesses.
2. But lobbying groups for the more than 3,000 liquor stores in the state, most of them small businesses, oppose such a move stridently, casting it as a fundamental threat.

They argue that even one additional license could open the floodgates to a proliferation of chain stores. “All of a sudden you would have the corporatization of liquor,” said Michael Correra, the owner of a Brooklyn Heights liquor store and the executive director of the Metropolitan Package Store Association, a trade group.

1. I know my community, I live in my community, I’m not some guy from Delaware or Virginia who owns 1,000 stores in the United States and wants to go open up 10 stores in New York.” Luis Ferré-Sadurní is the Albany bureau chief and covers New York State politics.
2. He joined The Times in 2017 and previously wrote about housing for the Metro desk.

He is originally from San Juan, Puerto Rico. More about Luis Ferré-Sadurní A version of this article appears in print on, Section A, Page 14 of the New York edition with the headline: Wine at Wegmans? Never in New York, if Liquor Store Owners Get Their Way.

Can you carry alcohol in public NY?

Open Container Law and Penalties – In New York State, it is against the law to drink from or have an open container of alcohol in a public place. This law does not apply to residences or business establishments with liquor licenses, but it does prohibit drivers and passengers from possessing or consuming an open container of alcohol in the car.

The law applies even when the car is not being driven, meaning being inside a parked vehicle does not allow you to have a drink. The only way to be sure that you will not get in trouble with the law for having an open bottle of alcohol in your car is if it is in the trunk. If a police officer discovers you transporting open bottles of alcohol in your car, you could be charged a fine.

However, it is possible that this discovery could lead to the assumption that you were driving under the influence of alcohol. This means that the officer could ask to administer a Blood Alcohol Test or various Field Sobriety Tests to determine whether or not you have been drinking and driving.

Can you carry alcohol openly in NYC?

But did you know you having alcohol in your vehicle (even if you are not drinking it) can also land you in trouble? Even if you are not drinking, New York’s ‘Open Container’ law prohibits having an open container of alcoholic beverage in a vehicle even if the car is not in motion.

Can you drink in Central Park?

Alcohol is not permitted in Central Park.

When can you drink alcohol in NYC?

What Is the Legal Drinking Age in New York? The legal age to consume alcohol in New York is 21.

What time is last call in New York?

What Time Is Last Call in Every State? The night is winding down, the music is pounding, and right on time, a bell rings and the bartender yells, “Last call!” At many, this is patrons’ signal to scramble to the bar and put in one last order before the night ends.

Around the country, bar closure times vary, as does the echoing yell for last call. Depending on the state, city, or district you’re in, closing time can range from 12 to 5 a.m., with last call occurring not long before. According to Travis Tober, bartender at in Austin, Texas, last call typically occurs 10 to 15 minutes before the bar is set to close.

In many states, individual municipalities can adjust last call laws. New York State, for example, follows the general closing time of 2 a.m., but official cut-off times for alcohol sales in New York City are extended to 4 a.m. The same goes for Alaska and its large metropolitan areas, which can close as late as 5 a.m. : What Time Is Last Call in Every State?

Is BYOB legal in New York?

No, BYOB (Bring Your Own Bottle) is generally not legal in New York State. Applicants awaiting a liquor license may jeopardize their chances for approval for permitting such practices.

Can a minor sit at a bar in New York?

https://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/24/nyregion/thecity/24fyi.html F.Y.I. Bar Babies Q. I’ve noticed a disturbing trend on the Upper East Side: parents sitting their children at bars among cavorting adults. I’ve seen children as young as 2 doing this. Is it legal in New York for children to sit and eat at the bar? A.

Yes. The Alcoholic Beverage Control Law does not prohibit a child’s sitting at a bar as long as the child is accompanied by an adult, said Bill Crowley, a spokesman for the New York State Liquor Authority. And, added Paul Browne, a Police Department spokesman, “as long as he’s served nothing stronger than a Shirley Temple.” F.Y.I.

has seen this elsewhere, for example in some Times Square restaurants. Families who have to wait for a table are shunted to the bar area, the only place with available seats. Whether parents want to perch their young child on a bar stool is their decision.

Whomp Whomp Whomp Q. I’m a little late with this question, but I was wondering what had happened to TubaChristmas, an annual holiday concert in New York with hundreds of tubas? I haven’t read anything about it in years.A. You missed a great concert Dec.9 at the rink in Rockefeller Center, where about 450 tubists belted out carols under the direction of Harvey Phillips, who founded the event in 1974.

Image Credit. Hiroko Masuike for The New York Times TubaChristmas has been returning to Rockefeller Center every year since, but it hasn’t got much publicity lately. TubaChristmas doesn’t advertise except through its Web site,tubachristmas.com. Mr. Phillips, 78, a virtuoso who christened his Indiana house Tubaranch, has helped elevate the popularity and the status of the rotund tuba.

1. TubaChristmas performs around the country and recruits tubists locally — Mr.
2. Phillips’s foundation helped arrange eight tuba concerts in New York State alone last December, and more than 220 nationwide.
3. We don’t turn anybody away because of their age,” he said, adding that performers in his tubathons had ranged from 9 to 98 years.

Asked if enthusiasm for the event was waning, he said it was growing. “Now we have lots of 10-year-olds,” he said. “In 1974, I don’t think I had many 10-year-olds.” A Musician’s Fancy Q. I’m curious about the building at 225-227 East 49th Street, near Third Avenue.

• It has various images inscribed over the door, along with a year, 1926.
• Can you provide some of its history? A.
• Yes, and quite a history it is.
• According to the Turtle Bay Association, the four-story Tudor-style house was built in 1926 for Efrem Zimbalist, the violinist; his wife, the Metropolitan Opera soprano Alma Gluck; and her daughter, the novelist Marcia Davenport.

The image of a violin and a singing angel are carved over the door. The Zimbalists were neighbors and friends of the publisher Henry Luce, who lived at No.234, and according to W.A. Swanberg’s biography “Luce and His Empire,” the families frequently got together for musical evenings.

What are the blue laws in New York State?

When the Harlem store Palace Liquors opened one particular day this week, it was a moment that some New Yorkers had wanted for more than three centuries. That is because the day it opened was Sunday. New York liquor stores have never before been allowed to open on Sunday.

• But at Sanchez Liquors farther uptown, the shutters remained drawn.
• Sunday is the day for resting,” said shopkeeper Francisco Calcaño.
• Besides, if the store is closed, that means less liquor on the streets on a Sunday, when people are walking with their families.” The long-standing ban on Sunday liquor sales was lifted as part of the state legislature’s budget package.

The lawmakers reasoned that allowing liquor stores to open on Sunday (even though they will have to choose another day to close each week) will mean more alcohol sales, and more taxes and fees for the state’s coffers. Some may think that this finally means an end to what are called the blue laws, which have regulated Americans’ moral behavior, especially what people can or cannot do on a Sunday, since the 17th century.

1. Things certainly have changed since the time when even a Sunday baseball game was considered immoral – and outlawed.
2. Indeed, the people opposed to allowing liquor to be sold on Sundays seldom even mention the word morality.
3. Governor Pataki vetoed the Sunday liquor sales bill, but it was unlikely that he vetoed the law for moral reasons, especially considering his substitute proposal to raise funds for the city – installing video slot machines in the city’s off track betting parlors.

In any case, the legislature overrode Pataki’s veto. Still, blue laws have not now faded into the quaint past. There are still laws regulating people’s private lives or freedom of choice — and not only ones that are outdated and unenforced. Some would say that there is at least one new one, promoted by our billionaire bachelor mayor — a prohibition on smoking indoors.

• HISTORY OF BLUE LAWS New York’s law banning liquor sales on Sunday has its origins in Puritan America and even the Roman Empire.
• The earliest indication that I was able to uncover about a specific law prohibiting activity on Sunday comes from the Roman emperor Constantine in the year 321,” said David Laband, author of Blue Laws: The History, Economics, and Politics of Sunday Closing Laws.

The law reads in part, Laband said, “Let all judges, and all city people, and all tradesmen, rest upon the venerable day of the sun.” Regulations against Sunday activities were in place in King Charles the Second’s England, as well as in the seventeenth-century Puritan colonies in America.

Many reference books say that the laws were called “blue” because they were printed on blue paper, but historians have said that the term is more likely to be derived from the use of the word “blue” to mean “rigidly moral.” A 1695 colonial New York blue law read, “Be it therefore enacted that there shall be no traveling, servile laboring and working, shooting, fishing, sporting, playing, horseracing, hunting, or frequenting of tippling houses, or the use of any other unlawful exercises or pastimes, by any of the inhabitants or sojourners within this province, or by any of their slaves or servants, on the Lord’s day.” The punishment for any of these offenses was a fine of six shillings or three hours in the stocks.

Other colonies had even stiffer blue laws. If someone broke Virginia’s Sunday restrictions three times, they faced the death penalty. In colonial Boston, Captain John Kemble was arrested and put in stocks for two hours for kissing his wife on the Sunday that he returned home from three years at sea.

• In 1789, President George Washington was on his way from Connecticut to attend church in New York when he was charged with a blue law violation for unnecessarily walking or riding on Sunday.
• In New York, regulations against Sunday activities continued into the next century, as upstate (largely Protestant) Republican lawmakers supported laws that did not make sense for the Jewish and Catholic residents of New York City.

The sale of liquor on Sundays was prohibited, and both professional and amateur baseball games were against the law. By the1890s, “there was a long tradition in the New York legislature of enacting legislation to enforce morality in the city, wrote Christopher Finan in Al Smith: The Happy Warrior, his biography of the1920s governor.

• The interference of upstate Republicans in both the administration of New York City and the social life of its citizens was deeply resented.” In 1907, New York City Democrats unsuccessfully introduced two bills in Albany to change the law prohibiting baseball on Sundays.
• Then-state Assemblyman Al Smith, according to Finan, spoke out against the Sunday ban on the floor of the state legislature, saying that it was better for young men to be playing baseball than “be driven to places where they play “Waltz Me Around Again, Willie.'” In 1917, the New York Giants and Cincinnatti Reds played the first Sunday major league baseball game at the Polo Grounds.

The managers of both teams were arrested for violating the blue laws. Sunday games became legal in New York two years later, but the bar on Sunday liquor sales became an all out ban during prohibition. A new law banning Sunday sales was drafted at the end of the prohibition era, and survived until this month.

• LIQUOR STORES ON SUNDAY The new law doesn’t do away with the state’s blue laws completely.
• New York’s liquor stores may be able to open on Sundays, but will have to close one other day a week.
• Mark Anderson, deputy commissioner of the New York State Liquor Authority, said that in order to enforce the one-day-a-week closing, he expects that each store will need to include the day that they will close each week in their license.

The law will sunset in five years, so Sunday sales may be banned again. It also limits the number of state liquor licenses to the ones currently in place. Grocery stores are still not allowed to sell wine, and can only sell beer on Sundays after noon. Liquor store groups have lobbied on both sides of the issue.

1. The Distilled Spirits Council of the United States, which lobbied hard for a lift of the Sunday ban in New York, sponsored a study finding that Sunday openings could bring in an extra $26.7 million a year in taxes and fees for New York State, because Sunday has become a big shopping day.
2. This is all about choices,” said Lisa Hawkins from the Distilled Spirits Council, who once told Business Review that she should have the right to “have margaritas with my fajitas on Sunday night.” Small owner-run liquor stores have often campaigned to keep Sunday closings, saying that they don’t have the staff to open every day, but would be forced to open in order to compete with larger stores.

The new law answers some of their concerns, by mandating that all stores close at least one day a week. Francisco Maracallo, the manager of the Washington Heights store Sandy Liquor, is looking forward to the good sales that he thinks Sunday will bring, and hopes to work out a plan with other liquor stores in the neighborhood, so that each one closes on a different day.

What time is last call in New York?

What Time Is Last Call in Every State? The night is winding down, the music is pounding, and right on time, a bell rings and the bartender yells, “Last call!” At many, this is patrons’ signal to scramble to the bar and put in one last order before the night ends.

Around the country, bar closure times vary, as does the echoing yell for last call. Depending on the state, city, or district you’re in, closing time can range from 12 to 5 a.m., with last call occurring not long before. According to Travis Tober, bartender at in Austin, Texas, last call typically occurs 10 to 15 minutes before the bar is set to close.

In many states, individual municipalities can adjust last call laws. New York State, for example, follows the general closing time of 2 a.m., but official cut-off times for alcohol sales in New York City are extended to 4 a.m. The same goes for Alaska and its large metropolitan areas, which can close as late as 5 a.m. : What Time Is Last Call in Every State?

Can you drink beer on the street in New York?

Consumption Alcohol in Street Summons Explanation with Text of Statute — Pink Summons Information By far and away the king of all summonses in New York City is the summons issued for Consumption of Alcohol in the Street. The good news regarding this summons is that, unlike many of the most common summonses issued, it is NOT A CRIME. Consumption of Alcohol in the Street is a non criminal offense.

Can grocery stores sell wine in NY?

A renewed push to allow New York supermarkets to sell wine is being fueled by a Rochester-based grocer with a devoted following that is increasing its foothold in the five boroughs. Wegmans, the grocery chain with stores throughout much of the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic, is throwing its weight behind a newly introduced, scaled-down bill in Albany that would allow supermarkets to stock their shelves with wine.

1. Wegmans’ interest is helping reignite a decadeslong battle at the state Capitol that, to this point, has seen liquor stores feverishly — and successfully — defend their exclusive sales rights.
2. Hear WNYC Albany reporter Jon Campbell’s report on efforts to allow wine to be sold in grocery stores: The grocery chain, which has a store at the Brooklyn Navy Yard and is opening another location on Astor Place in Manhattan, has erected signs outside their stores, directing customers to a website where they can easily send messages to their local legislators in support of the measure.

It’s spending at least $32,000 this month on its lobbying and public relations efforts related to the wine bill, according to state ethics disclosures. The push is being met with significant resistance from liquor stores and their wholesale providers, who say it would change the paradigm for wine sales in New York and put many shops out of business.

1. The same coalition successfully fended off Wegmans’ last significant effort to pass a more expansive bill back in 2010.
2. But supporters of the measure say the bill would simply give New Yorkers what they want: 75% of New York voters say they want wine available in grocery stores, according to a Siena College poll — which Wegmans commissioned as part of its lobbying effort.

“I think you have to start looking at wine in grocery stores from the first part of it, which is: Do people want it?” said Paul Zuber, executive vice president of the Business Council, an Albany-based business organization that has spent years lobbying on the issue.

1. And I think the answer obviously is yes.” New York and Connecticut are among 11 states that do not allow grocery stores to sell wine.
2. Like many of New York’s alcohol laws, the rules restricting wine sales to liquor stores trace back to the end of Prohibition.
3. In 1984, then-Gov.
4. Mario Cuomo proposed allowing supermarkets to carry wine – but only if it was made in New York in an effort to promote the state’s wine-making industry.

The effort failed. Gov. David Paterson resurrected the push in 2010, putting his support behind a more wide-ranging effort to allow grocers to sell all sorts of wines. But the liquor stores and wholesalers rose up against it, ensuring its defeat in Albany,

• Like the current push, Wegmans was the main financial driver behind the 2010 effort.
• But the company eased up for much of the 13 years since — hampered in part by Gov.
• Andrew Cuomo’s opposition to the measure,
• Now, Wegmans and other grocers are hoping Gov.
• Athy Hochul will be more receptive, though Hochul herself has given no public indication of where she stands on the matter.

“I’m waiting to see what the Legislature does,” Hochul told reporters in Buffalo last week. Through their lobbyists, both Wegmans and the liquor store industry have been active in the halls of the Capitol in recent weeks. Earlier this month, state Sen.

Liz Krueger (D-Manhattan) and Assemblymember Pamela Hunter (D-Syracuse) introduced a bill that would expand wine sales only to supermarkets that are at least 5,000 square feet and specialize in selling “foodstuffs.” The idea is to exclude convenience stores, bodegas and big box stores, including Walmart and Costco.

If passed, wine could be available for sale at about 1,900 grocery stores statewide, according to supporters. Previous iterations of the bill would have applied to four times as many stores. But that’s little consolation to liquor store owners like Michael Correra, who owns Michael-Towne Wine & Spirits in Brooklyn Heights — which is across the street from a Gristedes supermarket and a mile away from the Wegmans at the Navy Yard.

1. Correra is head of the Metropolitan Package Store Association, one of three major New York-based liquor store organizations.
2. Each spends between $4,000 and $5,000 a month on lobbying efforts, state lobbying records show.
3. He says grocery stores could easily wipe out his business if they’re allowed to sell wine.

“You’d certainly see kick out Campbell’s cans of soup and see them put 200, 300 wines in there,” he said. “They would be morons not to.” Under state law, liquor store owners are only allowed to own one location in the state — meaning many are of the mom-and-pop variety, which some state lawmakers have been protective of over the years.

That includes state Sen. James Skoufis, a Hudson Valley Democrat who leads the Senate’s government operations committee. The wine bill would have to pass through Skoufis’ committee on the way to the Senate floor for a vote. “You go to other states and there are no mom-and-pop liquor stores,” Skoufis said in an interview.

“You get your liquor from Costco, you get your liquor from Sam’s Club and other big chains. And we made the right decision to not go down that path a long time ago.” Krueger, a veteran lawmaker who heads the powerful Senate finance committee, said she knows building support for legislation can take time.

1. She’s been pushing the effort to bring wine to grocery stores for more than a decade, but she said it’ll take time to explain the benefits of her scaled-down bill to her colleagues.
2. If there’s enough momentum for it, great — I’d be happy to bring it to the floor,” she said of the bill’s chances this year.

“But I don’t sincerely know where leadership is or the governor is.” Hochul, meanwhile, suggested she may be more amenable to what she called the “low-hanging fruit” — a series of proposed changes to the state’s alcohol laws proposed by a state commission earlier this year.

Among them were relaxing the state’s rules on how closely bars can be located near religious institutions, or allowing for alcohol sales before noon on Sundays. (The commission, which included a variety of alcohol industry representatives including Correra and Zuber, voted against expanding wine sales to grocery stores.) Skoufis, who sponsors those proposals in a single omnibus bill, said Senate Democrats support moving forward with them in some form.

But he acknowledged that making even small changes to the state’s alcohol laws is difficult, since there are so many competing interests who support or oppose every change. He compared the effort to a Jenga tower. “You pull out one block and the whole tower starts to shake,” he said.