The Wichita Eagle's editorial staff is using a temporary mass exodus from the city as an argument for pushing an end to the city's ban on Sunday liquor sales.
Though journalists are all raging alcoholics (who wouldn't need to knock back a few shots after publishing the latest gossip about Britney's coochie), they actually have a point here.
The editorial noted that last Sunday, New Year's Eve, everyone left town for the smaller surrounding burgs that no longer ban Sunday liquor sales. Despite the massive economic drain caused by everyone getting their grog in Garden Plain, the ban in Wichita proper stays in effect.
Of course we in Johnson County must smile condescendingly at our less sophisticated Wichita brethren. After all, we put away the childish ban yeas ago (well okay, last year).
But the proposal is getting some criticism on the Eagle's blog. Many folks are complaining that we drunkards should be able to plan ahead and stock up on Saturday for our Sunday drinking binges.
Why not keep Sunday a sacred day, they say. Keep it a day of reflection, a day for family, church and cursing at the NFL refs on TV even though they can't hear you.
My own humble contribution to the discussion was to point out that liquor isn't really counter-Christian. I mean, didn't Jesus turn water into wine? So how is it any kind of disrespect to Christianity to allow Sunday liquor sales (unless you're selling it at church, you know, money changers in the temple and all).
Of course, the abuse of alcohol is a different topic, but then that goes for the abuse of anything (food, drugs, women, alliteration).
Anyway, since I haven't spent an appreciable amount of time in Wichita since my high-school days (ironically, we used to go there to drink), I don't really care what they do. But I would be interested in hearing the views of some Wichitans
tagged: Kansas, wine, Jesus, alcohol, Sunday
I don't drink often, or drink a lot when I do drink, so the restricted sales don't affect me--with the single exception of my very first grocery-shopping trip as a Wichita resident, when my desire for a six-pack inconveniently occurred on Sunday.
ReplyDeleteI moved here from Alabama, though, a state that is at least as conservative-Protestant as Kansas is yet permits liquor sales after 12 noon on Sundays (listening to sermons can work up a thirst). So what perplexes me is the (secular) arbitrariness of it all, more than anything else.
"Since journalists are all raging alcoholics..."
ReplyDeleteI can stop anytime.