Church and state: How Grendel's Den got its liquor license
By adamg - Wed, 06/17/2009 - 10:09am.
Back in the day, Massachusetts churches were allowed to veto nearby bars. In this video, a BU law professor explains how Grendel's Den challenged the law - and won in a Supreme Court decision. The church was eventually torn down and turned into a Peet's.
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did you mean "torn down" ?
Why yes I did
Amazingly, for a change, my mistake was actually correct, since the church in fact, was turned down :-).
There are still laws about
There are still laws about how close you can sell liquor to a church. When I lived in Waltham, the local convenience store was forbidden from selling beer because it was within a certain distance from a church.
Right, but...
Having a local government create a law or ordinance about where you can/can't sell liquor is very different from a law that allows a church to make decisions about where liquor can/can't be sold.
What's appalling is that it
What's appalling is that it took until *1982* to get this thrown out. I would have expected mid-1950s, or something.
The woman's voice on this video
The narrator's voice makes me want to hurt myself, could she sound any less enthused? Interesting topic, but boring narrator.
NPR Valium inflection?
It beats TV news reporters and anchors. ("Hey, let's destroy the meaning of intonation in this language, to keep people awake and make unimportant things seem important!")