Alcohol Laws of Missouri - History of Missouri Alcohol Laws

History of Missouri Alcohol Laws

Nicknamed the "Show Me State" for Missourians' well-known "stalwart, conservative, noncredulous" attitude toward regulation in general, this tendency always has been readily visible with regard to the state's alcohol laws. Missouri's laissez-faire approach to alcohol regulation also stems from its position as the leading alcohol-producing state in America, well known for wine production in the Missouri Rhineland and for beer production in St. Louis by Anheuser-Busch, which produces Budweiser. Anheuser-Busch is the principal advocate of keeping Missouri's alcohol laws as lax as they are.

But these laws have generally always been this way. During the height of the temperance movement in the late-19th century and early-20th century before nationwide prohibition, Missouri never implemented its own statewide prohibition. Actually, the voters of Missouri rejected prohibition in three separate initiative elections in 1910, 1912, and 1918. When temperance crusader Carrie A. Nation entered a bar in Kansas City in April 1901 and began to smash liquor bottles with her hatchet, she was promptly arrested and fined $500 ($12,926 in 2010 dollars), which her judge stayed as long as she agreed to leave Missouri and never return. The Missouri General Assembly did ratify the 18th Amendment in 1919, but only after it already had received enough ratifications to become part of the Constitution.

During prohibition, political boss Tom Pendergast ensured that the national prohibition law would not affect Kansas City's liquor industry and saloons. Kansas City's federal prosecutor, who was on Pendergast's payroll, never brought a single felony prosecution under the Volstead Act. Effectively, thanks to Pendergast, prohibition did not affect Kansas City. This atmosphere led the editor of the Omaha World-Herald to remark, "If you want to see some sin, forget about Paris. Go to Kansas City."

An 1857 Missouri statute left all liquor regulation to localities, including the question whether to go dry, except the collection of licensing fees. As a result, despite the lack of statewide prohibition, by the end of nationwide prohibition in 1934 half of Missouri's counties had gone dry. Immediately, though, Missouri enacted its first Liquor Control Law, which repealed and superseded those local laws. This was the first time Missouri had any statewide control of liquor. Today, Missouri has no dry jurisdictions whatsoever.

Before state alcohol regulation began in 1934, many Missouri cities, including both St. Louis and Kansas City, had banned Sunday liquor sales. Missouri's original 1934 Liquor Control Law prohibited Sunday sales of beverages with more than 5% alcohol by volume (not coincidentally the same amount of alcohol in Budweiser), but this restriction was lifted entirely in 1975.