MO Liquor Laws

 Kansas City, MO

My Bronson's Milk Punch at Grunauer.

Missouri Liquor Laws

As we travel, I like to get familiar with local liquor and alcohol laws.  There are some surprising things out there and I find them interesting.  All of this info is either gathered from talking to bar tenders, our experiences, or the internet.  These are my observations from a consumer's standpoint and should be used for entertainment only.  Something I write here isn't going to stand up in court.  

So far, while in Missouri, we haven't experienced a situation where we couldn't order a drink of some sort unless we were at a place without a license.  In general, alcohol can be bought between 6am and 1:30am all week including Sundays.  Most bars need to be closed by 1:30 but there are at least a few in Kansas City and St. Louis that are allowed to serve until 3am and there is 1 "super secret" place called The Mutual Musicians Foundation that serves until 5:30am.  It has special status as a National Historic Landmark and a special law was passed by The Missouri House of Representatives to allow only this place to serve alcohol all night.  It's now the place that all of the bartenders, musicians, and late night partiers go after the bars close.  We have heard you can hear some epic music there after 1:30am but we can't stay up that late.

Packaged alcohol can be purchased at Grocery Stores, Gas Stations, and Liquor stores in Missouri.  This includes all three categories of alcohol (Beer, Wine, and Spirits).  Missouri state law specifically prohibits any counties, or unincorporated city or town from banning the retail sale of liquor, but only allows incorporated cities to ban the sale of liquor by the drink by public referendum. No incorporated Missouri cities have ever chosen to hold a referendum banning alcohol sales.

As far as I can tell, there is no law that requires food to be served with alcohol like there is in other places and no law that says food must be served at an establishment that serves alcohol.  There are real bars in all of Missouri as far as I can tell unlike our experience in Texas which was county by county.

We hear the open container laws for walking around are strictly enforced like they are in other places (our experiences with this are mixed as there are places we walk in the morning that are littered with bottles and cans of various libations). There is one district, The Power and Light District, that has a special carve out.  You can carry around an open container within a certain area.  The area is much like City Walk or Downtown Disney where there are multiple bars, food establishments, and outdoor entertainment going on in the evenings.  There are also legal carve outs for "festivals" and "events".  We have been to at least one "festival" where they opened up the area for people to bring their dogs to the antique district and then called it something fun and served alcohol.

The REALY interesting law here is the open container law as it pertains to vehicles.  There is NO OPEN CONTAINER LAW FOR VEHICLES!  This means that Donna can chug a bottle of Jack Daniels in the passenger seat while I drive 70 MPH down the interstate.  She would never do this but she could if she were so inclined to do so.

We will be able to have a drink in our campsites while we are camping throughout Missouri but you can't drink on beaches or in parking lots at state parks.  We will be traveling to some states where you can't have a beer while camping which I think is pretty dumb.  

And now here are some photos of various beverages we have enjoyed in Missouri so far.

I got a free sample at a brewery so that isn't necessary illegal.

Museum Beer!

That's it for today but you can read about yesterday's adventure here.