In 1652, a Connecticut woman was fined for hanging out her wash on a Sunday. What was she thinking? It was the Lord’s Day. In the late 1600s, a New London fisherman was fined for catching eels on a Sunday.
Among the New England colony/states that enforced Sunday ‘Blue Laws,’ Connecticut has a special place in the hearts of those who defended the Lord’s Day. In Connecticut, it was even illegal for a woman to kiss her own child on the Sabbath.
It wasn’t until 1814 that Connecticut repealed a wide-ranging legal doctrine mandating that the citizenry “apply themselves carefully to the duties of religion and piety on the Lord’s Day.”
Some vestige of the Blue Law tradition remained on the books forever, in the old Puritan strongholds and across the country.
In modern times, the Blue Law tradition faced ‘Separation of Church and State,’ challenges; business-related legal challenges; and the joys of shopping, NFL football, and the kids’ soccer tournaments.
In Connecticut (and Connecticut was not alone), the Blue Laws became a hilarious tug-of-war among the legislative lobbyists, to influence what exactly could be open for business, what should be closed, and what product or service survived Sabbath scrutiny.
The courts were littered with Blue Laws litigation, First Amendment challenges and complaints that the laws had become riddled with murky and unfair exemptions.
In 1982, the Vermont Supreme Court dumped the state’s Sunday closing statute, ruling that it discriminated against big stores, which were required to close on Sundays, while the mom-and-pop retailers were allowed to stay open and defile the Sabbath.
Also in 1982, the Arkansas high court ousted the Blue Law, which it said was an incomprehensible mess that created 14 categories of items that couldn’t be sold on Sunday, except, of course, for murky exceptions.
Connecticut’s Supreme Court worked overtime (maybe on a Sunday) to overturn a Sunday closing law in 1976 — and, again, another version in 1979. One of the justices amused himself by noting that the law allowed drug stores to sell sheets and blankets on Sunday, but major bedding retailers could not.
A divided and cranky Massachusetts Supreme Court upheld the state’s weird Blue Laws in 1977 — a mistake that was overturned in 1982.
And so it goes, with many states still clinging to some fragments of the Sunday regulations.
Of late, Connecticut’s big liquor retailers, smaller liquor retailers, wholesale distributors and other interested parties have renewed a longstanding battle among themselves to allow the sale of liquor, wine and beer on Sundays.
The mom-and-pop liquor stores have managed to kill such stuff in years past, for reasons no more subtle than not wanting or needing to be open on a day when the competitors also are precluded from opening their doors.
In a sober, non-alcoholic snit, an Enfield legislator, state Rep. Kathleen Tallarita, plans to introduce a bill that would restore a full-bore, comprehensive Blue laws ban on almost everything. Take that, you stupid little liquor stores.
Tallarita may be on to something with her little prank. In the early 1900s, the North Dakota attorney general tired of pretending to enforce a draconian Blue Law that seemed to prohibit almost everything on Sunday but breathing and praying.
The legislature wouldn’t budge, so the Attorney General assembled a strike force of prosecutors and sheriffs and cracked down on everything — including the sale of infant formula. The legislature got the message.
So, Rep. Tallarita, get tough. If you want the General Assembly to surrender on Sunday whisky, you’re going to have to ban the sale of infant formula on Sundays. It won’t last long. Cheers.
Laurence D. Cohen is a freelance writer.
