Dry Counties

Eric, at Straight White Guy, started this particular ball rolling in my brain. Eric hails from the county of my birth, which is dry....you can get liquor by the drink in Athens, and that's as far as it goes. And that only came about within the last couple of years. There was a time in McMinn County you could only buy beer, and then only within certain hours of the day...and NEVER ON SUNDAY.

Eric's rankled by the fact he has to travel to Knoxville if he wants to buy liquor by the package.

Acidman responded, saying that if you want liquor badly enough, you can find it. He also adds that his local liquor store is outside the jurisdiction of of the codes of the a neighboring dry county, but is close enough to be convenient, and as such makes a mint.

Which is Eric's argument, basically: Knox and Hamilton counties in Tennessee are picking up the tax dollars of anybody from any of the neighboring counties who travel to get their liquor. And they're going to travel to get their liquor. Voting down things like package stores doesn't keep people from drinking. It keeps the county from getting the tax dollars associated with it.

Buddy Don says in his comment on Eric's site that the mentality that fought so hard to keep liquor by the drink and the package out of Knox County very likely kept Knoxville from becoming a bigger economic hub than it is.

And the Wandering Hillbilly also makes the wise, wise statement: dont seem to me lack ye kin engineer moralty with laws....which is steady-headed the likes of which you rarely find on the internet.

I have little to add to the whole discussion. I just rankle anytime somebody else does something for my own good, which seems to be the sole argument the anti-liquor people have.