I don’t blame lobbyists for everything that’s wrong in the world. Some of my best friends are lobbyists.
I know. I know. Right here on this page, I sort of, kind of, blamed mom-and-pop liquor store lobbyists for once again killing the legislation that would have allowed us to buy liquor on Sundays, as God and the liquor wholesalers intended.
Sure, those liquor store lobbyists were crafty and up to no good, but this no-liquor-on-Sundays thing pops up across the country. The idea that Sunday is for God and NFL football, but not for evil demon rum, is as strongly held a principle as the notion that state employees must be offered grandiose pensions and health insurance imported from Sweden.
Even as we speak, the City Commission in Key West is mulling a repeal of its ban on Sunday liquor sales from 4 a.m. to noon. Think about that. The ban applies to restaurants. In Key West. Imagine going to the wild-and-nutty oasis that is Key West and ordering a Bloody Mary with your Sunday brunch and being told that you are asking the restaurant to commit some sort of felony or something.
The “Blue Law” ban on Sunday fun and commerce used to apply to almost everything, especially in places such as Connecticut. Most of it has gone away, but the alcohol thing remains a stubborn piece of the secular theology. Since Connecticut is relatively thin on evangelical and Pentecostal fervor, the suspicion is that the no-liquor-on-Sunday thing has more to do with giving the small liquor stores a little competition-free holiday than it does about going to church without the smell of gin on your breath.
Many of the old religious traditions that intruded on the Public Square remain stubbornly in place — in a subtle sort of way. The Catholics may have taken a pass on meatless Fridays, but clam chowder remains the Friday soup of choice at restaurants across the land — even if the younger folks don’t really understand why.
Even Sabbath observance is subject to some marginal fiddling and negotiating. It’s been decades now since the Reform branch of Judaism chose Friday night, rather than Saturday morning, for the collective celebration of the Sabbath. And the Catholics introduced Saturday Night Mass, bowing to the reality of suburban soccer league games on Sundays.
What this all suggests to me is that Connecticut is poised to be the laboratory for liquor law experimentation. If we can’t seem to rouse ourselves to break free of the tyranny of Sunday and buy a few bottles of bourbon, why don’t we simply change Sunday to Wednesday? Governor Malloy can label it “shared sacrifice.”
It’s already going on. The United Protestant Church in Duluth, Minn., just announced that its Sunday Sabbath services were switching to Wednesdays. It seems that many of the Minneapolis-St. Paul folks have lake cabins in the country and the Sunday morning thing was getting to be a drag.
The benefits to Connecticut would be profound. If Wednesday was Sunday, and you bought a bottle of wine on a Sunday, the liquor control cops would be so confused that it would drive them to drink. On a Sunday. Which somehow is a Wednesday.
The old Sunday would become a flexible feast of work and recreation in Connecticut, as folks pondered whether to go to work on Sunday, because it is Wednesday — or merely assume that the old Sunday and the new Wednesday are “flex time” and very trendy.
I have to stop now. The columns are due on Wednesdays. Oops.
Laurence D. Cohen is a freelance writer.
