In short: For a law that does little other than enforce the religious and moral belief of a few, the Sunday alcohol sales ban stirs a lot of controversy.
While the argument that lifting Tuscaloosa County’s longtime ban on Sunday alcohol sales will help the economy doesn’t hold much water, there is a more compelling reason: Why not?
Why not let voters decide whether or not they want to allow alcohol sales on Sundays? If government officials are afraid that voters will support lifting the ban, then those same officials should be afraid that voters will unseat them in the next election. They are not in office to do what they want, they are there to do what Tuscaloosa wants.
Maybe, just maybe, Tuscaloosa residents want to be able to buy a beer on Sunday.
Yes, there are those who opposed the idea on religious grounds. Sunday is a day of worship for Chrsitians, who make up the majority of people in West Alabama, but Alabama is not a theocracy. Christianity, while by and large the dominant religion, is not the state religion. Something should not be illegal on one day of the week just because one religion says it should be. Especially not in a country founded on religious freedom and governed by the First Amendment.
Not even all Christians ascribe to this policy, although that is a debate more for the halls of religion than the halls of government.
The point is that this law has no purpose. If people want to drink on Sundays, they’ll just stock up on Friday or Saturday. All the law is stopping is a little convenience.
Some argue that allowing Sunday sales would improve the economy by boosting retail sales. That might make sense if alcohol were something you couldn’t buy on Saturday and Monday, but it is. It won’t boost the economy as much as people claim, but that doesn’t mean it’s a good policy.
It is a policy rooted in tradition and morality but not in logic. It does not deter people from drinking. It does not significantly lower the number of alcohol-related problems. It simply makes those who choose to drink on Sunday buy more alcohol another day.
We know why people might want to keep this policy for the sake of religious beliefs or moral dilemmas, but the important thing about limiting someone’s rights in the United States isn’t the matter of what put the limitation there, it’s the matter of why the limitation exists in the first place.
Our View is the consensus of The Crimson White’s editorial board.
