Hoosier booze on Sundays; cheap(er) pop in Illinois. Freedom? Or $$$!

As one who was born in the part of Chicago and raised in the part of the suburbs where the Illinois/Indiana border was nearby and Hoosiers were a different (although not quite alien) species, I have long been used to having to remember who can buy what (and when) on which side of State Line Road.

You won't have to cross the state line ...

The issue received some prominence last year when Cook County tried enacting a special sales tax on pop and other sweetened beverages – resulting in some Illinoisans making special trips to places like Hammond, Munster or Dyer to avoid paying the tax.

WHILE ALL ALONG, some Hoosiers were making a trip westward every Sunday if/when they wanted to purchase alcoholic beverages – and just couldn’t bring themselves to wait until Monday.

The “pop tax” went away a couple of months ago, although some people who long had been in the habit of buying cheap pop in Indiana continue to do so. Personally, I feel like it’s their gasoline they waste for such a trip – although they probably justify it on the grounds that gas is cheaper in Indiana ($2.42 a gallon, the last time I bought some Friday in Hammond a couple of blocks from Illinois).

Now, the liquor ban – which actually dates back to Indiana’s earliest days as a state two centuries ago – is also withering away.

Indiana Gov. Eric Holcomb signed into law this week a measure eliminating Sunday restrictions on alcoholic beverage sales, and it takes effect with this Sunday. Heck, Holcomb plans to have a “cook-out” at the governor’s mansion in Indianapolis to celebrate.

UNDER THE NEW law, liquor sales can start at Noon – which means you can’t skip out on going to church to get yourselves liquored up. But you can buy your booze after church services.

This is an idea whose political time had come, because for many years the lobbyists for the liquor industry opposed Sunday sales. Small liquor stores feared people would go to supermarkets with well-stocked liquor aisles and big-box retailers with sizable liquor departments to make such purchases.

But it seems that the mood of the public was such that the liquor industry took up the cause of the bigger retailers. Holcomb himself said of the move, “Today is a big day… it’s all about the consumer.”

... to buy your booze Sunday afternoon

So my guess is that the entity that will take a hit will be some of the Illinois-based retailers who were getting Sunday sales from people living near the state line who just couldn’t wait to consume some alcohol – some beer or booze, some hooch or whatever other snazzy term you use to describe it.

MY GUESS IS that there are enough Illinois-based boozers who will continue to make their Sunday purchases that our state’s retailers won’t take on a total financial loss.

Will we now have to find some other product that Illinois and Indiana residents can quibble over, or find some sort of moral grounds to dispute?

We in Illinois should be honest in not trying to claim some sense of superiority about liquor sales, because there are communities which have harsher laws governing liquor sales within their boundaries

I remember when I first moved to Springfield a couple of decades ago and discovering that I had to wait another hour on that particular Sunday before I could pick up a six-pack of beer.

ALTHOUGH IT’S MY understanding that the Illinois capital city has since eased its own standards on liquor sales.

HOLCOMB: A 'kegger' at guv's house Sunday?

There’s money to be made by letting someone buy some beer on Sunday – instead of having to wait a little longer. Heck, it seems that even Indiana has come to its senses with its new laws that will allow people to walk into the Jewel-Osco or the Strack & Van Til supermarkets to pick up the liquor they think will enliven whatever party or other weekend gathering they happen to be holding.

Just one question – is part of the reason for expanding liquor sales to the east of the state line that one needs to have a bit of a buzz going to be able to spend that much time living in the land of Hoosierdom?

Which may be like the people from Illinois who used to go in search of cheaper pop and cited high-minded moralistic points, when all the carbonation in the pop ensured they were full of gas (as in the belching kind)!

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