Re: What has disappeared since you were a kid
Advocates of "blue laws" generally confuse the concepts of being allowed to shop on Sundays with being required to. Anyone who doesn't want to shop on the Lord's day doesn't have to. For whatever reason.
It was Lee Brown, then police chief in Houston, who put an end to the Blue laws there. During the Christmas season one year, Brown annoounced that his department would not be investigating or responding to complaints of Blue law violations. And the thing just sort of died.
Before the end of this nonsense, stores that would be open 7 days a week, like Walgreen's, had to contend with a list of goods that couldn't be sold on consecutive weekend days. Like paint, but no paint brushes, baby formula but no bottles, batteries but not flashlights, etc. You'd go into a store on Sunday and whole sections would literally be roped off. It was irritating and stupid and pointless. It's been 25 years now since the Blue law has been dead and forgotten and I don't think Houston has lost its soul (at least not because you can buy formula and bottles on any day you d*mn please).
The leading proponant of the Blue laws in those days was the Houston Retail Merchants Association, a wholly owned subsidiary of the Foley's department store chain. They simply didn't want to have to make the business decision of whether or not it would be in their best interest to open their stores on Sundays, so they encouraged the state government to continue making the decision for them (and, co-incidentally, their competitors). Foley's is history and so is the Blue law.
