General Chat Thread 3 (climate, days, city, Canada)
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
Finland, Sweden and Norway have state alcohol monopolies with designated booze shops. Beer and cider are available in regular stores. In Denmark you can buy booze anywhere.
Luckily these stores are in city centres and large shopping centres, so when you get used to it, it's not that much of a hassle.
There has been a lot of talk in the last 15 years if wines would be released to regular stores, but governments are quite reluctant - the state monopoly is such good for tax income.
In Finland regular pubs/bars may be open to 2 am. Bigger restaurants until 3 am, nightclubs until 4 am.
Drinking in public is allowed as long as you don't create disturbance.
Denmark is attached to Germany so no surprises there lol! From what I've seen, booze above 3.2% abv in Scandinavia must be sold in govt bottle shops, is that right?
In Victoria, booze may be sold 24/7 if the shop wants to, whether its a bottle shop or supermarket or General store, and I think bars and pubs can trade 24/7 aswell. In practice though most bottle shops are open from 9am to 8pm-midnight depending on the individual shop. There are a handful of 24hr bottle shops within the Melbourne metro area if I am not mistaken.
Here in South Australia, I think bottle shops can be open till midnight, but supermarkets are not allowed to sell booze (failwhale), and pubs need to be closed for 4 hours or some s**t per day.
the map is a bit misleading, the yellow areas are counties with a dry town, usually out of the way rural towns. Function of history, more local control, and grumpy older people that don't want noise. They can just go to another town to drink or buy alcohol.
Well yeah, it's only an issue when you're a traveller who is unaware and sit down to a meal at a restaurant in one of these restaurants.
East of the Mississippi it's not a big deal for buying booze as counties are usually quite small and the "county line" isn't that far away.
It's also interesting that Utah is all blue though I know that even if not forbidden by law there you'll find a higher number of establishments that choose to not serve liquor in that state.
Denmark is attached to Germany so no surprises there lol! From what I've seen, booze above 3.2% abv in Scandinavia must be sold in govt bottle shops, is that right?
In Victoria, booze may be sold 24/7 if the shop wants to, whether its a bottle shop or supermarket, and I think bars and pubs can trade 24/7 aswell. In practice though most bottle shops are open from 9am to 8pm-midnight depending on the individual shop. There are a handful of 24hr bottle shops within the Melbourne metro area if I am not mistaken.
3.5% in sweden and 4.5% in norway. dunno about finland.
When I was living in Toronto alcohol was only sold at the LCBO. I remember every friday night the other students on my dorm floor used to rush to that place, and those who were not 19 y.o. yet usually carried a fake ID from some different province, like P.E.I. or Saskatchewan, so they could also enter bars. I was a bit older so I could get in, but since I was completely SxE at the time I did not care much at all.
You will be pleased to learn that the province of Ontario (which includes Toronto, for those who don't know) is very slowly loosening up its liquor regulations. They even began selling wine and beer in a select number of grocery stores.
LCBO* stores now have expanded hours in many locations as well. I live just across the border from Ontario and it used to be insane to get caught going to someone's house for dinner, looking for a bottle of wine and ending up in front of an LCBO store that had closed at 5 pm!
*Stands for Liquor Control Board of Ontario. Gives you an idea of the mindset!
Here the city is starting to be restrictive on alcohol, they usually pass a law that forbids people to be outside with an open beer / bottle in hand after 10 pm, especially in the poor neighborhoods where people often get alcohol at the grocery store.
A regular sight of the student neighborhood, which the city wants to change now that we have some tourism:
That's interesting. I guess there are "behavioural" problems with alcohol in Bologna (or Italy in general?) so that explains the tightening up.
Here in Canada there is a slow loosening up of things. At least this is my impression. But I live in Quebec, which has always been looser than the rest of the country anyway...
Mildura sounds pretty good!!! Same state, same booze laws, and less than a 90 minute drive away. The only thing missing is an Aldi, but surely it is only a matter of time... I mean if places like Swan Hill and Echuca have an Aldi, it is only a matter of time. I should also mention that Victoria has 21st century supermarket hours, you can shop from 6am-midnight in any Woolies or Coles in the state. IN QLD, WA and SA, nowhere is open past 9pm.
Melbourne itself though ****ed thanks to the endless procession of labor cretins. Regional Victoria is good, especially as they have the nation's most lax booze laws.
I'm surprised you didnt move to mildura, it's a bigger town/city in the same state with the same weather as renmark and probably more opportunity
huh, I'm sure Cambridge has liquor stores. Or rather, package stores.
At least at night we didn't find anything, maybe they stop selling them past a certain hour. Understandable, since Cambridge is trying to maintain a certain level of atmosphere
Boston would be an amazing place to live if not for the climate at least it's a small upgrade over Upstate NY climatewise, in other areas Boston is like a million times better than Upstate NY lol
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
at least it's a small upgrade over Upstate NY climatewise, in other areas Boston is like a million times better than Upstate NY lol