Drinking in American（I）

Alcohol and the law
It is difficult to give a description of American laws concerning alcohol because they vary from state to state and city to city. The following, though, may be noted. Some towns,even state are totally is sold at all except that they allow the sale of very weak (3.2 percent alcohol) beer,known as “three-two” beer. Some places do not allow the sale of alcohol on Sundays, even in shops—you may find a bar locked over the alcohol shelves. You can see it but not buy it! Other places permit alcohol to be sold on Sunday afternoons and evenings, but not on Sunday mornings. (Note that this means sales have to stop at midnight on Saturday.[Coach Leather Bag] In many parts of America, you are not allowed to drink alcohol in a public place.That is, you may not sit in a parkor walk along a street drinking beer,and you cannot even take a nice bottle of wine on your picnic. In some places, people can be seen taking drinks in public places from cans wrapped in brown-paper bags. These are not cans of Coca-Cola [Coach Poppy Handbag]. And in many states you are not allowed to drink alcohol while driving, or even have an opened alcohol container in the car.Some bars have a license only for beer and wine. Others are also allowed to sell spirits and thus, as Americans say, “mixed drinks”. Many bars have a period known as “happy hour”, often longer than an hour, when they sell drinks at lower-than-usual prices. This is usually around 5 p.m. and may be only on certain days of the week.
The Legal Drinking Age
Legal drinking age varies from place to place but is generally between 18 to 21. Some places permit the consumption of beer at 18 but spirits only at 21. Others permit the consumption only of “three-two” beer from 18 to 21. (Young people therefore often drive from one place to another with more liberal drinking laws. In any case, in some parts of the USA young people are allowed to vote [Coach Poppy], marry, raose children, keep full-time jobs, be tried in courts as adults, join the army and even buy guns—but NOT have a glass of beer. In some places people aged between 18 to 21 are allowed to go into bars but not allowed to drink. Another even more interesting aspect of American drinking-age laws is that in some places people below legal drinking age are not even allowed to sell alcohol. Providing Proof of Your Age In most places these drinking laws are fairly rigidly enforced. You may,[Coach Purse] for example, find people lining up to get into a bar and discover that the queue is caused by a guard on the door who is asking everybody for ID. If you ask him why he wants to know who you are, he will inform you that he actually wants confirmation of how old you are. On such occasions Americans often show their driving licenses, which have their date of birth written on them.