In NC we can buy beer and wine in grocery stores (although there are specialty stores for the fancy stuff). But liquor is all sequestered in "ABC" stores. They've loosened the blue laws, so you can buy your grocery booze on Sunday morning, but the ABC stores are still closed all Sunday. Because you only offend your deity of choice if your drink is more than 20% alcohol, I guess.

But liquor is all sequestered in "ABC" stores.

The first time we went to Topsail for vacation, we had no idea what the ABC stores were, because all we could see on the sign was the big giant "ABC," but nothing that indicated it was a liquor store. We were half-convinced they were a chain of strip clubs trying to be discreet.

I THINK - not sure - that whether a grocery will carry beer and wine is decided on a store by store basis. My local grocery does carry it, but the selection is, at best, meh. There are actual liquor stores which have a better selection, so I go there ... although there's a convenience store just up the street from my place that has wine and beer - all the beer is cold, but only some of the wine. Again, the selection is limited, but it's close to home.

I still think of it as a novelty that I can get alcohol in many supermarkets now and feel guilty that I don't go to the liquor stores I used to go to that often anymore.

msbelle, good luck settling in!

California we can buy it all in a grocery store. Also most drugs stores. The CVS near my office has a pretty big liquor section.

Rhody has no alcoholic beverages of any kind in supermarkets. Very annoying.

Same in Massachusetts. MA tried to overturn the law with a ballot initiative a few years ago, but the police union came out strongly against it, so it failed.

NYC used to have laws against serving alcohol in restaurants before noon, which was kind of a bummer if you went to brunch at 11 and wanted a mimosa. Not sure if that law actually changed or is just no longer enforced.

That used to be the case on Sundays in Georgia. Made working the brunch shift extra aggravating. (And you couldn't buy at stores on Sundays at all.)

Illinois you can buy beer, wine, liquor at grocery and convenience stores. It's nice.

Same in Massachusetts. MA tried to overturn the law with a ballot initiative a few years ago, but the police union came out strongly against it, so it failed.

Actually many of the markets in this part of MA have at least wine and beer now, and a couple even have hard alcohol. I think there is a limit on how many of them can have a liquor license in the area.

I learned not terribly long ago that drug stores usually have a pretty good selections of booze because during Prohibition you could buy alcohol with a prescription, so of course they carried whatever they could. With I believe somewhat similar backgrounds to soda/ice cream counters although those have waned more - the syrups were used for tonics, nostrums, elixirs and whatnot

I don't know how that is affected by state law.