blackshoe, on 2015-July-03, 11:47, said:
But it's not just SCOTUS. The article quotes a more recent case (1995) in the Tennessee Court of Appeals:
Quote
It does seem like this judge was reaching -- does he think that people won't stock up on beer on Saturday so they can get drunk on Sunday and beat their kids? On the other hand, other lower courts have held that blue laws are unconstitutional. There doesn't seem to be a widespread concensus, it seems to depend on which judges get asked (which is related to the point I was making earlier, about these decisions being made by small courts).
I think blue laws have been slowly fading away in most states simply because the governments need the tax revenue, or just for competitive reasons. MA no longer prohibits retail establishments from opening on Sunday (except that liquor stores can't open until 10am), and dozens of non-retail businesses are also exempted from the blue laws; however, they do require that employees be paid time-and-a-half if they work on Sunday and holidays, and employees can't be forced to work on Sunday/holidays (they can't be penalized or fired for refusing).
But back when we prohibited all liquor sales on Sunday, I think liquor stores located near the NH border were exempted, so they wouldn't lose sales to stores over the border.
There's also a clause in the section on exemptions that addresses Jews. It doesn't actually specify the religion, but says that if they close their business from sundown Friday to sundown Saturday, they're exempt from the Sunday closure requirement.