Wednesday Writs: 21st Amendment Gets Liquored Up Edition

Em Carpenter

Em was one of those argumentative children who was sarcastically encouraged to become a lawyer, so she did. She is a proud life-long West Virginian, and, paradoxically, a liberal. In addition to writing about society, politics and culture, she enjoys cooking, podcasts, reading, and pretending to be a runner. She will correct your grammar. You can find her on Twitter.

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42 Responses

  1. Doctor Jay says:

    [WW3] Sharing photographs of a lover is something that has never crossed my mind as a possibility of something I might do. It seems really, really, uh, gross. And by the way, no person I know has ever attempted this with me, either. That’s not to say it doesn’t happen, just that that’s not the sort of person I seem to make friends with. Which is interesting, since it’s not like we talk about it. The only friend I can remember who said things like “Hey, don’t you think she’s hot?” later came out of the closet.

    AND, I wonder how you write a law to prohibit revenge porn that doesn’t grossly violate property rights. I mean, laws are sort of blunt instruments, really. We shouldn’t mistake them for moral judgement. Hmm, maybe “material of a sexual nature is presumed have copyright retained, and is licensed conditionally unless a written contract states otherwise”? I’m not a lawyer.Report

    • I get really mad at people who share risque photos of lovers. A woman sharing a hot picture of herself is both really cool and shows a high degree of trust. By publicly sharing it to shame her, you’re ruining a good thing.Report

    • Kazzy in reply to Doctor Jay says:

      Re: Gaetz specifically, I heard on a podcast that he supposedly shared such images while on the Capitol (perhaps even on the floor of Congress) and this may put him in violation of DC’s anti-revenge porn law. If true, it means his opposition to the bill was likely not just hypothetical.Report

  2. Oscar Gordon says:

    FYI, What is General Average (hint: It’s not a mediocre military leader).Report

  3. Jaybird says:

    WW1: Colorado does not sell booze at grocery stores. You have to go to a liquor store to buy booze. Until very recently, you could only sell 3.2 beer (do you like to pee? You’d better!) at grocery stores or 7-11.

    That law got quietly modified a few years back and we were treated to billboards that said stuff like “CIRCLE K NOW SELLING FULL STRENGTH BEER” for a few months. And, yes, you can now buy full strength beer at Safeway as well (but not wine or liquor).

    So I am no stranger to wacky liquor laws!

    But I must be misreading what you wrote above. I am interpreting your paragraph to say that the “WOW!” ad was showing the sale prices of Fritos and Mr. and Mrs. T’s Pina Colada mix and an ad showing the prices of those things was deemed inappropriate? Did I read that right?Report

    • Doctor Jay in reply to Jaybird says:

      It was the parallel construction. Fritos–, Pina Colada mix-,
      Booze-“WOW”

      There’s an implication there that the state of RI did not approve of.Report

      • Jaybird in reply to Doctor Jay says:

        I can understand (even if I don’t agree with) a law that says “you can’t advertise booze prices”.

        But putting an ad out there with “Fritos – $1.99! 7-Up – $1.99! Seagrams 7! Wow!” strikes me as not violating the law that says “you can’t advertise booze prices”.Report

        • PD Shaw in reply to Jaybird says:

          The State took the position that the ad implied booze prices, and the liquor commission agreed.

          The ad also contained a disclaimer “State law prohibits advertising liquor prices,” which might have also been seen as emphasizing that we really want you know the price because you would find this information appealing, but nanny State is preventing us. Maybe the regulators thought they were being used as a prop to help circumvent the restriction?Report

    • Kazzy in reply to Jaybird says:

      NJ *barely* allows sales at grocery stores. The law limits corporations to holding just TWO liquor licenses statewide. So, functionally, you can’t sell such stuff at grocery stores since the vast majority of them are corporate. Growing up, none of the stores near me sold the stuff so, in all practicality, the only place you could buy beer/wine/liquor was at a liquor store. And I guess that made sense? You buy food at a food store and clothes at a clothes store and liquor at a liquor store. As I got older and began living in other places, I increasingly noticed, “Weird… they have a beer fridge next to the milk fridge?” or “Hey! We can get tallboys at the CVS here!”

      I’m fortunate that a few of our local stores are the ones their corporate overlords granted the liquor licenses. Our in-town Stop-and-Shop and the big Whole Foods a few towns over (as opposed to the small, in-town Whole Foods) and the local boutique grocery chain (before it sold) all sold booze, which made for more efficient shopping.

      But the whole thing is cockamamy.Report

      • dhex in reply to Kazzy says:

        can’t buy beer at grocery stores in md because this place is the woooooooooorst.

        and if they did it’d be nothing but ipa brews, flavored with old bay.

        nothing like having to make an extra trip so you can make guiness stew. it’s very convenient.Report

        • Kazzy in reply to dhex says:

          Heh… living in MD felt very familiar except there were far fewer liquor stores if memory serves. I think MoCo regulated them at the county level or something? When we went to Virginia we had to goto ABCs. What the F was that?Report

          • InMD in reply to Kazzy says:

            The alcohol rules vary widely county to county. MoCo is the most regulated and I believe the only one with ABCs. However it is a myth that there is no beer in grocery stores. The Safeway in Olney (MoCo) sells beer as does the Shoppers in College Park (PG), to name a couple I am aware of. That said it is not the norm.

            Other counties all have private liquor stores, some open later than others, some allowing drive throughs, some not. The rural counties sell beer in gas stations but for whatever reason that is extremely rare to see in the core metro area (there are some places but you have to know where they are).

            Legend has it this is because Maryland is one of only 2 states that never amended its constitution to prohibit alcohol (hence the ‘Free State’) and therefore never established the same tradition of state control. When federal prohibition ended, it devolved back to the counties, where it has mostly stayed. No idea if this is true, just what I have heard.Report

            • Kazzy in reply to InMD says:

              I never understood the county system in MD. I lived in the same apartment for 2 years but somehow “moved” multiple times and lived in 3 different towns because apparently towns are meaningless there. MD is weird.

              Cool flag though. Best in the nation IMHO.Report

              • InMD in reply to Kazzy says:

                Yea, town means basically nothing, county is everything.

                The flag is the absolute best. The tax situation on the other hand…Report

              • dhex in reply to InMD says:

                counties are extremely powerful here, and default units of government in many ways. something we’re seeing the (imo) bad side of with vaccine distribution over the past two months in particular.

                no gas station beer here out on the shore that i’ve seen, but plenty of liquor stores. (and so many ipa offerings, ugh)Report

              • InMD in reply to dhex says:

                I’ve seen it in gas stations in Ocean City and out west in Alleghany and Washington counties but admittedly don’t have enough experience with the situation in non-resort areas of the eastern shore. We’re in agreement on the IPAs though. Way too much of that where I live as well.

                Re: county power I’ve never lived in another state so don’t have anything to compare it to. It definitely does seem to exacerbate the various issues arising from the connection between real estate, NIMBYism, school quality, etc.Report

              • dhex in reply to InMD says:

                n=1 and all but it’s the only state i’ve ever been in where people identify on the county level very specifically, like “oh i’m from wicomico” or “pg” or whatever. similar to boros in nyc but much, much more (since generally you’d say “i live in prospect heights” or whatever neighborhood)

                though there’s the big eastern shore/western shore split as well, each regarding the other locality as being especially different. which they are, to be sure, but perhaps not quite as mythically as it is often put.Report

      • Jaybird in reply to Kazzy says:

        I visited my cousin in Michigan and they have bottles of red wine right there on a little shelf over the steaks in the meat case. Like, look down. There’s your steak selection. Look up at eye level and there’s a bottle of red, right freakin’ there. A decent enough 10 dollar bottle.

        I kept looking around thinking “THIS IS CRAZY”.

        Then I mentioned that I was from Colorado and everybody kept making jokes about marijuana being legal.

        YEAH WELL AT LEAST WE DON’T SELL BOOZE AT THE STORE!!!!Report

        • Mike Schilling in reply to Jaybird says:

          Here, Safeway has enough selection (of beer, wine, and booze) that I rarely go to the liquor store that’s two doors down. But I’ve never seen the do pairings like that. Do your pot dispensaries sell cookies?Report

        • fillyjonk in reply to Jaybird says:

          I always boggle when I visit my mom in Illinois, that they sell straight-up booze (not just 3.2 beer, not just wine coolers, not even just wine) in the Walgreen’s.

          it’s like, it’s right there.

          We very recently got the ability for groceries to sell full-point cold beer (there was some rule about it couldn’t be cold) and wine. Not all of them do; many don’t have space for it or they have owners that object, maybe? I think the two smaller groceries near me sell only beer; the wal-mart had wine (though I’ve not been in there in over a year now so that might have changed). In fat, Pruett’s might not even sell beer….I don’t remember seeing it (I’m trying to mentally scan the refrigerated cases and no, nope, i don’t remember seeing beer).

          We were promised that large grocery chains would come when we were allowed to sell wine. Still hasn’t happened.

          I wonder what would happen if they legalized recreational pot AND allowed groceries to sell it….(probably they can’t, something something protect the kids something). Then again I’m not sure I’d want to see produce or cereal shelves given over to MJ….Report

          • Jaybird in reply to fillyjonk says:

            Michigan had this thing where you could buy beer/wine off the shelves in the store but had to go to a very particular counter to purchase your bottle of The Hard Stuff.

            I cannot imagine them selling edibles at the grocery store (MY GOSH) but whenever I say “I cannot imagine X!” I feel a poke in the back of my head that reminds me that that is a statement about the limits of my imagination rather than, you know, anything about the world.

            So I hope that they’d have a counter where you go up and specifically have to ask for Keef Blue Razz Cannabis-Infused Classic Soda (10mg THC per can) instead of being able to idly pick them up off of the shelf because, seriously, it looks like a can of pop and if you were not paying attention I could see someone easily getting this to the register before shrieking in horror that the six-pack costs more than $50.

            Wait, for 9 bucks a can, they’re probably not going to put the stuff out. Behind the counter is where they’ll put it for their own protection, not for anybody else’s.Report

      • DensityDuck in reply to Kazzy says:

        It’s also a matter of property rights. The license is a guarantee that you’re the only one for so-far around permitted to sell whatever sort of booze your license is for, and you’re allowed to hand that license down to heirs or successors, so there’s a strong incentive for the license-holders to keep the system exactly as it is because that’s just like mineral-extraction or oil-drilling rights.Report

        • Jaybird in reply to DensityDuck says:

          Yeah, the biggest opponent to grocery stores selling booze? It wasn’t the Prohibition Party People. It was the Mom&Pop Liquor Stores.

          Grocery stores selling full strength beer (but not wine/liquor) was a compromise that kept everybody happy.

          Prohibition in a world without Babtists.Report

    • Oscar Gordon in reply to Jaybird says:

      I remember a few years back when there was a big fight about changing the WA liquor laws so you could sell it outside of state run stores. The who’s who of supporters and opponents was so weird.Report

  4. LeeEsq says:

    WW1: Semi-related but I’ve been thinking about the rules regarding the business end of lawyering, that is how lawyers can and can not run their offices and firms, and basically decided they are really out of step with how things actually are. I understand the ethical reason behind a lot of these rules like the rule against sharing legal fees with non-lawyers, it is all to make sure that lawyers don’t do anything unethical or illegal in generating business or arguing for their clients, but a lot of the support structures that made the rules work in the past no longer exist.

    Lawyers weren’t even allowed to advertise until 1980, the year I was born. Imagine what the legal profession would be like if the ban on advertising continued in the Internet age. Nobody would be able to find a lawyer. Likewise, many of the other rules regarding the legal business don’t conform to the real world. So this basically favors Big Law or the not for profits but hurts the street level lawyers of small law. Many of the rules seem to be better suited for a system where you still have a distinction between barristers and solicitors and we got rid of that in the United States right after the Revolution.

    So the entire legal profession is basically organized to run on a very pre-Internet or even pre-suburban world in many ways but lacks the necessary support structures that made the system work in the present.Report

  5. PD Shaw says:

    WW4: “Originalism” This falls into the Humpty Dumpty category that a word means what I say it is and that is all.

    The critique of Dred Scott from the dissenting justices was originalist. The Founders passed the Northwest Ordinance outlawing slavery in that territory, so the original understanding of the Constitution cannot be that Congress does not have power to outlaw slavery in its territories. Also at the time the Constitution was ratified, free blacks in five states (including North Carolina) were citizens, enjoying equal voting rights, so the original understanding of the Constitution cannot be that blacks could never be citizens.

    RBG considered herself an originalist. When she found that popular initiatives in Arizona satisfied the Constitution’s requirement that election regulations be enacted by legislatures, she pulled out dictionary definitions from the Founding era, pointed to analogous forms of direct democratic legislation at the time of ratification, and even stressed the importance of exercising deference to state sovereignty as part of our Constitutional system.Report

    • PD Shaw in reply to PD Shaw says:

      RBG, striking down restriction on advertising liquor prices:

      “Advertising has been a part of our culture throughout our history. Even in colonial days, the public relied on “commercial speech” for vital information about the market. Early newspapers displayed advertisements for goods and services on their front pages, and town criers called out prices in public squares. Indeed, commercial messages played such a central role in public life prior to the founding that Benjamin Franklin authored his early defense of a free press in support of his decision to print, of all things, an advertisement for voyages to Barbados.”Report

      • Chip Daniels in reply to PD Shaw says:

        Which is why originalism seems like such a poor method.

        It doesn’t provide a clear methodology for arriving at an answer since it requires a jurist to imagine what the drafters of the Constitution thought, even though they themselves were often of different minds about it. So the jurist inevitably selects from a menu of “original” thoughts and picks the one most suited to the ruling one wants to make.Report

        • Brandon Berg in reply to Chip Daniels says:

          Originalism constrains interpretation, but these constraints are necessarily incomplete and do not provide an unambiguous guide to interpretation of every possible legal question. Furthermore, originalist interpretation is based not merely on imagining the original intent, but on study of contemporaneous records. Note also that there’s a distinction between authorial intent originalism and public meaning originalism, the latter being based on how the Constitution and is amendments were understood by the public, and more specifically those who voted to ratify them.

          In any case, the fact that the constraints imposed by originalism are incomplete is a rather bizarre criticism to make against it when so-called living constitutionalism removes those constraints almost entirely.Report

          • Chip Daniels in reply to Brandon Berg says:

            The logic behind it seems arbitrary, like you can just pick and choose whichever voices from 1789 you prefer, then deem it authorial.

            Besides, how to square the “original intent” of an amendment written in 1780 with another written in 1865, with one written in 1948?

            It seems more consistent and reasonable to interpret all of these in light of what we today take the meanings to be.

            If you’re going to have a living Constitution in all but name, why not just drop the pretense?

            Why not discover the meanings of phrases in the culture of 2021, rather than 1789? Because after all, the purpose of the Constitution is to provide a just system for us today, not long-dead people.Report