Liquor stores in New York will be able to open up as early as 10 a.m. on Sunday thanks to a bill Gov. Kathy Hochul signed into law over the weekend, while retailers will be able to sell beer and wine in the overnight hours.
Under the new state law effective immediately, liquor and wine stores will be permitted to be open from 10 a.m. to 10 p.m. on Sundays. Previously, state law didn’t allow liquor stores to open until noon on Sunday and forced them to close by 9 p.m.
Grocery stores and other retailers — unless prohibited by local law, which is not the case in New York City — will be allowed to sell beer, mead, braggot and cider from 3 a.m. to 8 a.m. on Sundays, which had previously been prohibited under state law.
The newly signed bills are New York’s latest effort to slowly chip away at its post-Prohibition era “blue laws,” which have restricted alcohol sales on Sundays for nearly a century in the state.
In 2016, then-Gov. Andrew Cuomo signed a bill into law allowing restaurants and bars to serve alcohol beginning at 10 a.m. on Sundays — a measure that became known as the “Brunch Bill.”
Hochul signed the latest batch of bills into law on Saturday.
“I’m proud to sign this legislation that will modernize the laws governing the sales of alcoholic beverages in New York,” she said in a statement.
Many of New York state’s alcohol laws date back to the 1930s, the end of the Prohibition Era. The state has gone through various efforts to overhaul them over the decades, with little luck.
Most recently, the state formed a 16-member commission dedicated to studying the state’s alcohol laws and proposing ways to modernize them. The panel — which included state finance and tax experts and representatives of liquor store and restaurant owners, among others — advanced 18 proposals in a report earlier this year.
The state Legislature balked at advancing the full slate of proposals before lawmakers ended their annual session in June, which would have allowed…
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