Sure, It May Seem Insignificant To Some . . .

The State Legislature finally has fixed one of the last really lame blue laws — Sunday morning liquor sales:

The State Legislature opened the final week of its regular session by agreeing to toughen drunken-driving laws. But lawmakers also agreed to allow beer sales earlier on Sunday mornings.

Those two agreements came on a day in which the Legislature failed to resolve the largest issues that divide lawmakers, or their disagreements with Gov. George E. Pataki, including restoring several hundred million dollars’ worth of budget cuts to hospitals and nursing homes, the structure of a new office to fight Medicaid fraud, and the Legislature’s billion-dollar-a-year property tax rebate. In fact, the Republican-led Senate and the Democrat-led Assembly seem unable even to agree on what day to end the session, Thursday or Friday.

Instead, they focused on some of the less contentious bills on their agenda, reaching agreement on a requirement that child safety alarms be installed in pools and on the measure that would allow beer sales starting at 8 a.m. instead of noon on Sundays, ending one of the last vestiges of the so-called blue laws that limit alcohol sales on Sundays.