In the
United States, states are largely left to their own to make laws about the
selling and
consumption of
alcohol. Thus, there is a
proliferation of different laws that vary wildly from
state to state about what kind of
booze can be sold where. About the only constant at this point is the
drinking age of 21, but that was only because it was tied to
federal highway funds and no one wanted to
miss out. Before that, drinking ages from state to state ranged from 18 to 21.
The state with the weirdest liquor laws in my opinion is Utah. But I live in New Jersey and it's strange here too. Most of the variations have to do with whether or not there are state-owned liquor stores, whether or not beer or wine can be sold in grocery stores or convenience stores, how bars and restaurants get liquor licenses, the hours of businesses that serve alcohol. I believe in South Carolina, bars can only serve mini-bottles, like you're on an airplane. So a screwdriver is a glass of orange juice and a little bottle of Smirnoff or whatever.
In New Jersey a municipality (and there are over 500 of them, there's no unincorporated land) can have one liquor license per 3000 inhabitants. A liquor licence enables a bar or restaurant to serve alcohol. The catch is that all the existing licenses when the law was passed about 20 years ago were grandfathered. So a town like Hoboken has more liquor licenses than current law would permit. Oh yeah, did I mention these licenses can be bought and sold like property?
It's even worse--some counties within states are "dry counties" where no alcohol whatsoever can be sold. Boy, that must depress property values. Of course, usually there are huge liquor stores and bars right over the county line where they can sell you booze, and people are now just driving for booze and probably endangering everyone in both counties. Woo-hoo.