It almost needed a miracle, but the legalization of Sunday wine and liquor retail sales squeaked by in the Senate Wednesday morning, with just the minimum 17 votes needed to pass. The House passed the legislation Monday night, and all that awaits is Gov. Bill Haslam's signature before your favorite liquor store can, if they so desire, sell booze from 10 a.m. until 11 p.m. every Sunday and every holiday except Thanksgiving, Christmas Day and Easter.
No, we kind of can't believe it either, but Sunday sales really are coming to Tennessee!
Of course, as supporters of the legislation have been pointing out all along, Sunday sales are already here. You can buy bottles of liquor at a distillery to take home on a Sunday, or you can buy wine at a winery. If you're willing to pay the markup, you can buy a bottle of wine in a restaurant, drink half a glass, and take the rest of it home. And if you're willing to drive, you can buy wine on Sunday in five of the eight states that border Tennessee. Plus, retail beer sales and on-premise bar sales have been legal on Sundays for years.
Debate in the House of course focused on the morality of buying liquor on Sundays, with some conservative legislators saying it would destroy "our heritage" and "our Southern culture." But in the Senate, sponsor Sen. Bill Ketron (R-Murfreesboro) said that the Bible discusses negative aspects of alcohol about 20 times and positive aspects over 200 times — Jesus did turn the water into wine, after all.
A few other legislators voted against the bill not for moral reasons but because they fear it will hurt liquor store owners, which was a frequent criticism against allowing wine in grocery stores too. But the lobbying group for liquor stores was very involved in the drafting of the legislation, which not only gives them a head start on Sunday sales (yes, ugh, you will have to wait until January to buy wine in grocery stores on a Sunday) but also prevents any new liquor store licenses from being issued for three years. (Existing licenses, however, can be transferred to new owners.)
Haslam told The Tennessean that he definitely will sign the bill, so hypothetically, if it heads to his desk immediately, there could be Sunday sales this weekend. More realistically, it will be a couple of weeks, and it might take longer than that for your local package store to decide if they even want to be open an extra day.
Still, though, you will very soon be able to buy that extra bottle of wine at the last minute when a planned Sunday dinner for two suddenly turns into dinner for four. And to that, we say, hallelujah and amen!
