EDITORIAL: Sunday alcohol sales ban defies free-market rules

One news report Monday called Indiana “the toughest place in the nation to buy take-home beer or liquor on Sundays.”

Indiana does not allow Sunday sales of beer, wine or liquor by grocery, convenience or liquor stores.

As the debate over Sunday sales has raged in recent years, it has become clear that Indiana’s rules are based on protecting one kind of business — liquor stores — against competition from rivals.

Liquor store owners contend that Sunday sales would be bad for their profits and threaten their survival. Even a neutral expert from Ball State University believes they’re right. A few years back, Michael Hicks predicted that one-fourth of liquor stores could go out of business if Sunday sales were allowed.

Liquor store owners say it would increase their operating costs significantly to be open on Sundays, but it would not raise the costs for grocery stores, which are open Sundays, anyway. The liquor stores contend their sales would not grow, but simply spread over seven days instead of six.

Legislators have been sympathetic to liquor store owners, who have cast themselves as the underdogs in this fight. Not all liquor stores are true “mom-and-pop” businesses, but they’re certainly smaller than huge grocery chains such as Kroger, which are leading the campaign for Sunday sales.

But should any of that matter? In other segments of the economy, Republican leaders are quick to argue — correctly — that government should not be “picking winners.”

In addition to the ban on Sunday sales, liquor stores also benefit from Indiana’s quirky law that allows them to sell cold beer, while their competitors must sell it at room temperature.

When Indiana began its Sunday sales ban decades ago, it had the aim of maintaining Sunday as a sacred day. Over the years, legislators have allowed the state’s sabbath alcohol ban to erode — by permitting Sunday sales in bars, restaurants and most recently at breweries and wineries. Indiana’s alcohol laws now lack any noble purpose, and they smack of favoritism, not logic.

Liquor store owners are warning about the dire consequences for crime, traffic safety and health that could come from allowing take-out alcohol sales on Sundays — as if those problems did not exist on the other six days of the week. And if they’re correct that lifting the Sunday ban would not increase total alcohol sales, then how would alcohol problems multiply? They can’t have it both ways.

Voices in the debate disagree on whether alcohol purchases — and tax revenue — would grow or stay the same if Sunday sales were allowed. But that should not be a deciding factor.

Instead, legislators should listen to their colleague, Rep. Phil Boots, R-Crawfordsville, who is sponsoring a bill to end the Sunday ban on take-out sales.

Boots recently said Republicans “are supposed to be free enterprise, and we’re supposed to be free commerce. But in this area, we’re not for some reason.”

When it comes to businesses competing to sell alcohol in Indiana, government should be neutral. We don’t have special laws protecting any other types of small, local retailers from their bigger competitors.

Boots concedes that once again this year, his colleagues likely won’t listen to his free-market logic on alcohol sales. But they should.