Rejoice, All You Sinners: You Can Buy Beer at 10 a.m. This Sunday

We’ve all done it. Maybe more than a dozen times. Grabbed our Sunday fixin’s before noon kickoff only to get to the checkout and feel the hot glare of the galley for your sinful ways on the day of the Lord. Really, you should be in church. Do you put that six-pack of white wine back? Or do you leave it there and stomp out? Do you announce you’re from New Jersey and say, “Are you frickin’ kiddin’ me right now?”

Among a slate of other laws that went into effect on Sept. 1, like the permitless carry of handguns and bounties on women’s bodies, a new measure allows retailers like Kroger and Albertson’s to sell beer and wine at 10 a.m. on Sundays instead of having to wait until noon. That is the sweet taste of freedom, friends.

Well, freedom within moderation, that is. Consider the fact that Texas is the only state in the nation that doesn’t allow publicly traded companies to obtain hard liquor permits; Walmart sued the state over the matter last year but the Supreme Court rejected the suit saying, “Nah, Texans at Walmart drink too much anyway.” Or something like that.

Another piece of legislation this past session attempted to take down Texas’ law that keeps liquor stores shuttered on Sundays. Only a handful of other states adhere to this set of “blue laws” that ban the sale of alcohol on Sundays including Alabama, Mississippi, Montana, North Carolina, South Carolina and Utah. But, yeah, that bill died.

Heck, it was only in 2019 that the Legislature passed laws allowing the sale of beer to go from craft breweries. It took a pandemic to allow us to buy liquor to go from restaurants.

But, yeah, 10 a.m. this Sunday, no more glares or walking your beer back to the cooler.