Connect with us
[the_ad_placement id="manual-placement"] [the_ad_placement id="obituaries"]

News

Prohibition could be at an end in Mississippi

Published

on

(Photo by Peg93 - Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=29382420)

Mississippi legislators are effectively ending prohibition in the Magnolia State.

More than 100 years ago, Mississippi was the first state to ratify the 18th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution making the manufacture, sale, transportation and importation of alcoholic beverages illegal. It had already been illegal here for more than a decade before Congress passed the Volstead Act in 1918.

Source: Mississippi Department of Revenue. Click to expand the image.

On Jan. 17, 1920, prohibition became the law of the land, and while the act was repealed in 1933, Mississippi didn’t embrace the repeal until 1966. At that time, it finally allowed counties to decide whether to allow alcohol sales, but the default for all counties was “dry.” Each county and each municipality could hold a vote to become “wet,” and by now, most have done so, but it has left the state with a patchwork of laws and rules governing alcohol, while the state strictly controls the brands and types of alcohol allowed. It also levies a 27.5% markup on alcohol, generating tens of millions in revenue annually.

A bill is now on the way to the governor’s desk that will change the default setting for Mississippi counties to wet. HB 1087 renounces prohibition and allows the possession of “beer, light spirit product and light wine throughout the state.”

Light wine is defined as having 5% or less alcohol by weight.

At this time, 29 Mississippi counties are dry, although alcohol is allowed in some locations within those counties. Should counties choose to remain dry under the new law, they can hold elections to reimpose prohibition.

See a typo? Report it here.