What was the Louisiana Drinking Age loophole until the mid-90's?

You could consume alcohol at 18, but not buy it until you were 21, or buy at 18, but not legally consume until 21?


Trying to explain to young kids about how shite was back in the day. Law changed when I was in high school, and there was no grandfather clause as my cousin found out.

Law changed when he was 20. He could either buy or consume alcohol legally for two years, then got shut off for a year until he turned 21.


Seriously though, I feel bad for kids these days. Can't buy beer or cigarettes until they are 21. But can receive the death penalty at 18.

Where's the logic in that?

I don’t think the drinking age law has been super effective over the years. Teens looking to get wasted will always find a way. I can’t tell you how many of my class-mates in high school would share stories of their drunken revelry lol.

Think back to Prohibition. Alcohol was illegal for everybody no matter how young or old, but people still found a way.

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Can't buy beer or cigarettes until they are 21. But can receive the death penalty at 18. Where's the logic in that?

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1) Federal Highway funding for the state

2) Buying booze at 21 has nothing to do with receiving the death penalty at 18 for heinously murdering someone

They could sell it to you it it was illegal for you to buy it. Age of majority in Louisiana was 18 and you cannot discriminate based on age.
Was crazy how it went down. In fact there was one weekend after it went down that a judge put a hold on the law and we were all good to drink for a weekend.

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I think it was you could buy it at a store at 21, but drink it at 18 at bars, because they were private establishments. (I maybe wrong)

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It was odd, it was illegal for those 18-20 to buy alcohol but it was not illegal to sale to them... go figure this ended in maybe 1995.

When I used to come to Mardi Gras in college, on my schools dime no less*, in the late 80s we had no issues buying alcohol prior to being 21.


* I shot 3 position smallbore on my college team and Nicholls State had a huge rife match the week before Fat Tuesday. Our coach would always register us to shoot on Thursday then we would party in NOLA until Sunday morning when they had the awards lunch and then head back home. They gave us some amount of per diem for meals and we just sweet talked a waitress at a small restaurant into giving us a ticket book and we "ate" there all week and one guy wrote out the tickets for our whole time there so we drank on the college. It worked all 4 years I went, no one noticed the tickets from all 4 years were consecutive and the coaches didn't care.

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When I was 18 you could buy all the booze you wanted at Schwegmann's. Early 1970s.

Years later Feds told La you can't have Fed highway funds unless you raise drinking age.

The old LA drivers license during that period were very conducive to faking. Right on the card itself using lamination sheets, so you could peel it off real quick if necessary.

In the town my high school was located there were 2 gas stations that sold it to us at 15 but they knew us and knew we weren’t narcs.

Pizza Hut would sell certain people pitchers of beer when you went in to eat.

One Saturday night it was a little awkward several of us (16-17) were sitting at a table in Pizza Hut with 2 pitchers of beer when a couple of parents walked in to eat.

In the early 80s I was a freaking bartender at a big nightclub at 16 years old! I shite you not! Those were the days.......in rural Avoyelles Parish! Even got some college snatch back then, that way!

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Those were the days.......in rural Avoyelles Parish! Even got some college snatch back then, that way!

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Kyrles baw??