Bergen County...True Blue!
I was under the impression that those laws ceased to exist, but two years after moving to NYC I discovered that this indeed was not the case. In Bergen Country New Jersey they still observe fairly strict Blue Laws. It seemed unbelievable to me that here, so close to NYC, there would be a place that would still have Blue Laws and actually keep them. If my memory serves me correct (Kenny correct me if I am wrong) the Blue Laws there dictate that on Sunday no retail stores are open for business, people are limited as to what they can buy at a grocery store, and you cannot buy alcohol. Also restaurants can't serve alcohol, and they must close early.
Why the sudden interest about "Blue Laws?" Well, the on-line magazine "Slate" has a fascinating article about secular Israelis attempting to rescue the Sabbath from being completely ignored by secular Jews in Israel. The rational is that if people let go of such a strong indentifier of Jewish culture and identity, then the Jewish state is severly weakened. Similar arguments were made about the Blue Laws here in America, which I didn't know, and found really intersting. It is a fascinating article which you can read here. Thoughts?
2 comments:
As a point of clarification, Bergen County's Blue Law is not quite that strict. The public is limited to gas stations, restuarants, bars, drug stores, grocery stores and yes, liquor stores. The liquor stores close around noon, but the restaurants and bars do server alcohol until closing. Business owners do have the option of purchasing a special permit to stay open on Sunday, but it is ridiculously expensive. The Blue Law in America dates back to the Puritans, who observed Sunday as God's day and no work should be done. This is actually causing quite a bit of controversy here in Bergen since it is 1) the wealthiest county in all of NJ (read=CAPITILISM) and 2) so many of the business owners are non-Christian (not just Jewish, but Hindi, Islamic, Bhuddist, etc...) and can't understand how this Christian-oriented legislature is still on the books in 2005. If you surf the local community forums on the web, this is always a well-heated, yet poorly-argued topic. The greatest benefit of the Blue Law, for me anyway, is the lack of traffic on the major roads through Bergen County.
The only thing that I still notice in Texas is the malls and some others stores close at 6 instead of 9 or 10. Restaurants and bars are open as late as they wish and can serve alcohol until 2 am. All of these are pretty much at the descretion of the business owners except it is mandatory alcohol sales stop at 2 am. 12 at grocery stores. LIquor store however are not open on Sundays and are closed by 9 pm every other day. Some counties and towns are different. For instance, the latest alcohol can be served in Abilene, where I went to college, is 1 am and that's only on Saturday nights. Every other night is 12. Also, counties and cities can be dry, which just means you can't buy it at grocery stores and there are no liquor stores. I guess I'm getting into things that aren't "blue laws" but this how it is in Texas now. Personally I'm always needing to go to Hobby Lobby on Sundays and its a little bit annoying that they close. The Christian bookstore's open. I guess they can do that because there aren't a whole lot of craft stores like that.
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