By Charles Melton
Melton’s Musings
I know that Hutchinson is a small Midwest town, but I didn’t realize it was THAT much of a small Midwest town until Sunday. Not that I was upset about it. Just a little shocked. A little disappointed and slightly annoyed.
You can’t buy beer in Hutchinson on Sunday. Period. Not even after noon like it is many places that I’ve lived. You simply cannot buy a beer in Hutchinson on Sunday. Call me shocked to say the least.
During my college days at Texas Tech University in Lubbock, Texas, I knew that Lubbock was a dry town, so I planned accordingly. When I lived in Waco, Texas, they had the beer coolers chained and locked at midnight on Saturday night, so you couldn’t buy beer until noon on Sunday. In New Orleans, well, let’s just say that the party never ends and the alcohol flows like the mighty Mississippi.
But for Hutchinson not to allow at least beer sales on Sundays when it’s not a dry town and when surrounding cities allow beer sales on Sundays makes no sense to me. It doesn’t have to allow all alcohol sales on Sundays, but beer, come on, man!
From a purely economic standpoint, beer sales on Sundays would be a boost to the city’s and subsequently the county’s and state’s coffers, especially with summer coming. Just think about it for a moment or two.
It’s a warm, sunny Sunday afternoon and you’re thinking about firing up the grill and inviting friends over for a get together. You check to see what you have for it and you realize that you need some mustard, mayo, barbecue sauce, and a few other things that you know you can get from the store. Then you look in your fridge and realize that you only have a six pack of beer. Then you realize that six beers isn’t enough for 15 people, so you decide not to have it and ask if your friends can make it the following Saturday. But no, you made dinner plans with your significant other that day, and you can’t exactly tell her that a barbecue with the boys is more important than dinner with her, can you?
You lost the chance to have a good time with your friends and the city lost possible sales tax revenue on at least 60 or 70 dollars of things you would have purchased for the event. Now multiply that by all the barbecues that could be held on Sundays during the summer and into the fall when football season is in full swing.
When the Chiefs play, some people would rather have gatherings with their friends at their houses than any one of the fine establishments we have here in Hutchinson simply because it’s more convenient. But you can’t have a proper Chiefs watch party if you don’t have beer, can you? If you forget to stock up Saturday afternoon for Sunday, your Chiefs watch party will resemble a lecture instead of an actual fired up Chiefs-loving fan party. Ain’t nobody got time for that, do they?
Chick-fil-A isn’t open on Sundays, and that’s a choice its founders made. It works for them and their franchises. What’s wrong with at least giving business owners in Hutchinson the option to make their own decisions about selling beer on Sundays? No one’s saying that every liquor store in town has to be open on Sundays, but at least give those who want to, the option to do so. If you want the city to make a grant to an alcohol treatment program in the county in exchange for allowing beer sales on Sunday, that’s a fair request. No one’s trying to get drunk on Sunday. They just want to enjoy a beer at home while grilling and chilling with their friends. Is that too much to ask?
Charles Melton is the news editor of The Hutchinson Tribune. He can be reached at charles@hutchtribune.com.