Actually Vic was sort of right. The Louisiana drinking age was raised to 21 in 1986 to avoid losing federal highway dollars, as I stated in an earlier post, but a loophole made it legal for bars and others to sell alcohol to those under 21, complicating possible enforcement of the law. In 1996 the loophole was closed. Prior to the change, Louisiana was the last state in the nation to allow 18 year olds to drink alcohol in a bar or restaurant.
Buying my own beer since 9th grade....only in Louisiana, only at Stutes Bar...
When you are old, many things meld together. I think it is Florida that moved the legal drinking age up from 18 to 21 one year at a time and that started in or about 1979 or so.
All you needed at the strip was a bad fake ID and you were good. I have a November birthday and finished college in three years so I was never even 21 when in collage at Louisiana (USL).
I started school in 1990, and drinking age at the bars was DEFINITELY 18.
The law was something like, you could buy it at 18 and consume on private property, but couldn't have it in public. Something absurd like that.
That was pretty much it CharlieK. Like I said in a previous post, the law changed in 1986, but the loophole about bars and restaurants was not closed until 1996 meaning that any bar/restaurant/private business could serve alcohol to anyone between the ages of 18-21 until 1996. In 1996 the loophole was closed and Louisiana officially became the last state in the union to increase the drinking age from 18-21 in all businesses. Louisiana tried for 10 years to get away with it, as the Federal government threatened to withhold federal highway funds each and every year. In 1986 when the law changed (but the loophole was found) it got very contentious between local and federal government. Louisiana claimed that the law states that the drinking age is 21, but the loophole did not make it effective. So by the letter of the law we changed our drinking age, but by the actual law we had not.
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