Originally posted by RustyOrgan:
Again - Blame the piece-of-shit religious fuckers who try to control the availability of alcohol - and the tool politicians who follow along.
actually, the control of alcoholic beverages in maryland is due to the cozy relationship between politicians and alcohol distributors. the various counties in maryland make a ton of money off of the exclusive contracts made between them and alcohol distributors that limit where, when and how you can purchase alcohol, not to mention limiting the variety of labels and producers. while these rules may have originally served the purpose of religious authorities, so-called blue laws, those purposes have long since been thrown out the window in favor of donations to campaigns and easy money into government coffers.
virginia, except for their control over the sale of hard alcohol, has been one of the front-runners in getting rid of this relationship with distributors, primarily to allow the direct sale of virginia wine to customers outside of virginia without having to go through a distributor.