The following table of alcohol laws of the United States provides an overview of alcohol-related laws by state throughout the US. This list is not intended to provide a breakdown of such laws by local jurisdiction within a state; see that state's alcohol laws page for more detailed information.
As of July 1988, all 50 states and the District of Columbia had a minimum purchase age of 21, with some grandfather clauses. Prior to 1988, the minimum purchase age varied by jurisdiction. After Congress passed the National Minimum Drinking Age Act in July 1984, states not in compliance had a portion of their federal highway funding withheld. South Dakota and Wyoming were the final two states to comply, in mid-1988.
Unlike on the mainland, the U.S. territories of Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands have a minimum purchase age of 18. The minimum purchase age is 21 in the Northern Mariana Islands and Guam.
U.S. military reservations are exempt under federal law from state, county and locally enacted alcohol beverage laws. Class Six stores in a Base Exchange facility, an Officers' and/or NCO clubs as well as other military commissaries which are located on a military reservation may sell and serve alcohol beverages at anytime during their prescribed hours of operation to authorized patrons¹.
Famous quotes containing the words list of, list, alcohol, laws, united, states and/or state:
“My list of things I never pictured myself saying when I pictured myself as a parent has grown over the years.”
—Polly Berrien Berends (20th century)
“Modern tourist guides have helped raised tourist expectations. And they have provided the natives—from Kaiser Wilhelm down to the villagers of Chichacestenango—with a detailed and itemized list of what is expected of them and when. These are the up-to- date scripts for actors on the tourists’ stage.”
—Daniel J. Boorstin (b. 1914)
“[T]ea, that uniquely English meal, that unnecessary collation at which no stimulants—neither alcohol nor meat—are served, that comforting repast of which to partake is as good as second childhood.”
—Angela Carter (1940–1992)
“If we are related, we shall meet. It was a tradition of the ancient world, that no metamorphosis could hide a god from a god; and there is a Greek verse which runs, “The Gods are to each other not unknown.” Friends also follow the laws of divine necessity; they gravitate to each other, and cannot otherwise.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“Next to the right of liberty, the right of property is the most important individual right guaranteed by the Constitution and the one which, united with that of personal liberty, has contributed more to the growth of civilization than any other institution established by the human race.”
—William Howard Taft (1857–1930)
“On September 16, 1985, when the Commerce Department announced that the United States had become a debtor nation, the American Empire died.”
—Gore Vidal (b. 1925)
“A set of ideas, a point of view, a frame of reference is in space only an intersection, the state of affairs at some given moment in the consciousness of one man or many men, but in time it has evolving form, virtually organic extension. In time ideas can be thought of as sprouting, growing, maturing, bringing forth seed and dying like plants.”
—John Dos Passos (1896–1970)