Alcohol laws of Missouri

The alcohol laws of Missouri are among the most permissive in the United States. Missouri is known throughout the Midwest for its largely laissez-faire approach to alcohol regulation, in sharp contrast to the very strict alcohol laws of some of its neighbors, like Kansas and Oklahoma.

Nicknamed the "Show Me State" for Missourians' well-known "stalwart, conservative, noncredulous" attitude toward regulation in general, this tendency always has been readily visible with regard to the state's alcohol laws. Missouri's laissez-faire approach to alcohol regulation also stems from its position as the leading alcohol-producing state in America, well known for wine production in the Missouri Rhineland and for beer production in St. Louis by Anheuser-Busch, which produces Budweiser. Anheuser-Busch is the principal advocate of keeping Missouri's alcohol laws as lax as they are.

But these laws have generally always been this way. During the height of the temperance movement in the late-19th century and early-20th century before nationwide prohibition, Missouri never implemented its own statewide prohibition. Actually, the voters of Missouri rejected prohibition in three separate initiative elections in 1910, 1912, and 1918. When temperance crusader Carrie A. Nation entered a bar in Kansas City in April 1901 and began to smash liquor bottles with her hatchet, she was promptly arrested and fined $500 ($12,926 in 2010 dollars), which her judge stayed as long as she agreed to leave Missouri and never return. The Missouri General Assembly did ratify the 18th Amendment in 1919, but only after it already had received enough previous ratifications to become part of the Constitution.

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