Louisiana Liquor Laws

 Baton Rouge, LA

Sales At the State Level vs. the Parish Level

At the state level Beer, Wine, and Spirits can be sold at grocery stores 24 hours a day 7 days a week.  The state also allows for dedicated liquor stores to sell Beer, Wine, and Spirits 24 hours a day 7 days a week.  The state does allow each parish (basically a county) to decide on their own liquor laws pertaining to time and day of sales.  The south part of the state tends to be more liberal with their alcohol sales than the northern parishes. You will need to check with the parish you are visiting about Sunday sales and sales of packaged alcohol from grocery stores after 2am. 

The red parishes have some sort of restrictions for Sunday alcohol sales

I started looking at a few parishes and they are all over the board.  It looks like some block liquor sales between 2am and 6 or 7am every day and some treat Sundays differently and have extended dry hours.  I am not going to be spending much time in the red parishes so I don't think I will go through and list every parish and their unique liquor laws.  I will stick with East Baton Rough and Orleans (the 2 parishes I will be spending the most time in).  

Gas stations are also allowed to sell packaged beer as well as breweries.

At the state level onsite bars must close by 2am except for New Orleans where bars in the French Quarter are permitted to be open 24 hours a day.  The state allows parishes to determine if on site sales are restricted on Sunday or not.

East Baton Rouge, LA

In East Baton Rouge Parish (the parish that Baton Rouge is in) you can buy alcohol at grocery stores and liquor stores from 6am to 2am every day.  Bars are can be open until 2am every day.  

The alcohol areas in our local supermarket are wide and full

Target was selling beer, wine, and spirits as well.

Orleans Parish

Orleans is basically the same as Baton Rouge except for the special carve out for the French Quarter.  You can buy alcohol at grocery stores from 6am to 2am and at bars until 2am.  In the French Quarter bars are permitted to sell alcohol 24 hours a day.

Fun Fact

Louisiana isn't as crazy as Missouri where they let the passenger in a vehicle drink all they want while they ride in the car but they do allow drive through Daiquiri stands.  Frozen Daiquiris are basically alcoholic slushies.  You can get about a dozen flavors and you can even get them at drive throughs even though you can't drink them.  They come in Styrofoam cups with a straw on the side.  You aren't allowed to push the straw through the lid until you get to your destination.  This is the most liberal definition of non-open container I have ever heard of.  We haven't experienced one yet but we plan to next month.  I will be sure to report back.  Until then here is a stolen photo showing the sealed container.

Stolen from here.  They have a great legal write up about them.

Cajun Cooking

Yesterday Donna and I cooked up our Grits that we bought the other day.  We made a white gravy for them with Tasso which is a dried ham used for flavoring.  The meal turned out great!  

The recipe we used can be found here.  We cooked Baked Eggs in Tasso Cream and put them on top of Gouda Grits from this recipe that has more than just the Gouda Grits.

That's it for today.  If you missed yesterday's post you can find it here.