It's about time:

By John Gramlich

Stateline.org

Seventy-five years after the repeal of Prohibition, state lawmakers across the country are marking the anniversary by relaxing or eliminating some laws that have restricted alcohol sales since as long ago as the 1930s.

Colorado this week became the 35th state - and 13th since 2002 - to allow residents to buy alcohol on Sundays when a measure that won the approval of the General Assembly and Democratic Gov. Bill Ritter in April formally took effect. The new law replaces a 1933 state statute forcing liquor stores to close on Sundays, and also allows Coloradans to buy normal-strength beer on Sundays. Residents previously could purchase only reduced-strength beer, with 3.2-percent alcohol or less.

In Idaho, lawmakers did away with another Prohibition-era law that prevented liquor sales on Election Day. The original measure, approved in 1939, was intended to prevent the trading of alcohol for votes, and its repeal means that, for the first time in generations, Idahoans can toast their candidates by buying spirits on the same day they vote for president this November.

In Virginia, meanwhile, lawmakers repealed an obscure state law that banned restaurants from mixing liquor with wine or beer. The statute, likely intended to prevent public drunkenness after Prohibition was repealed, had modern-day consequences: It meant that restaurants couldn't legally serve authentic, Spanish-style sangria - a mix of brandy, wine and triple-sec. As of this month, however, traditional sangria is again on the menu in the commonwealth.

Those and other recent revisions to alcohol laws, enacted by some of the 40 state legislatures that have wrapped up their work so far this year, come more than seven decades after the 21st Amendment to the U.S. Constitution was ratified in 1933, reauthorizing the manufacture, sale and consumption of alcohol nationwide. The 21st Amendment repealed the 18th Amendment of 1919, when Congress and 36 states agreed to ban alcohol across the country after bowing to heavy pressure from temperance organizations.

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