Unsurprisingly, the East Baton Rouge Metro Council passed, in an 8-3 vote last Wednesday, an amendment that relaxes liquor laws in Baton Rouge on Sundays.
Mayor Kip Holden will have 12 days to sign or veto the amendment. If he does not sign within the 12 days, the amendment will become law Nov. 5.
Though loose drinking laws and culture are fairly redundant subjects in South Louisiana, this particular instance has its uniqueness.
Two factors make this amendment nearly ineffective: religion and college football.
First, being that Baton Rouge is not as heavily Catholic as other areas of South Louisiana, it is as Christian-based as any other Southern town is.
Simply put, the general consensus in our area is that Sundays are the Lord’s Day. Sunday is for church, large midday dinners and lazy naps.
With the amendment having passed, I would like to thank God for only a seven-day week. Seven days out of the week to drink would certainly shave a couple of years, per we will always need a day off.
The slow-paced Sunday is an establishment in Louisiana and the South. It’s the day typically utilized to get our lives back in order for at least another five days. Fast times on Louisiana Friday and Saturday nights would make any Heineken-drinking-Yankee’s liver show early signs of cirrhosis. I’d give a Yankee two days of rest for every one that a Louisiana man needs.
Bill Nickel, a chemical engineering senior, denotes his Sundays as “more of a day for moral intoxication,” and cannot see the new amendment really affecting his Sundays.
“If anything,” Nickel said, “Sundays are composed of vows never to drink again, but we all know how that plays out.”
Sunday mornings in college hardly exist — by the time you can recall last night’s shenanigans, the dosage of guilt usually drives the car to church itself. And after you make peace with the Big Man upstairs, at least for another week, it’s time to read those chapters you promised yourself you would never read on Friday or Saturday.
It’s no secret, thanks to ’70s country band Alabama, that Louisiana Saturday nights are infamous. Along with bellies full of beer and a possum in a sack, brothers Bill and Jack are usually left with a headache and the shakes.
Sentiments from ocal bar managers and owners seem to be mixed. Some see it as a new opportunity for people to go out after Sunday events, but others are hesitant because of lackluster food service in bars — they don’t see people coming out only to “party” on a Sunday.
Stores will also be allowed to open and sell alcohol just as they would on any other day. This should aid our Bloody Mary brunch habits.
But the only time of the year where I see it having some kind of effect would be during the NFL season. However, being that Baton Rouge is easily written up as a college town that lives for Saturdays, NFL football does not draw the attention, or the thirst, that Saturday nights in Death Valley do.
Sundays are also days of feasts, and football fans are notorious grubbers. But I find that if anyone were to work up a severe buzz in Baton Rouge for an NFL game, it would be over buffalo wings, cheese fries or a backyard BBQ pit.
It’s exhausting enough to run a 14-hour beer-drinking marathon and put your heart, soul and vocal chords into a team that seems to bask in fingernail-biting games. My Sunday afternoons watching the Saints and old Westerns, though just as heart-wrenching, are tamer and much less physically demanding.
The law could create some tax revenue from liquor sales, but this growth in revenue should prove to be miniscule.
It’ll be interesting to see what Tigerland bar comes up with the most clever drink deal on Sundays.
Sake Bomb Sunday, anyone?
