About 10 years ago, Shaun forced me to go to OH and IL and they have hard liquor in gas stations and Drive through liquor stores. this country girl was shocked!
Atlanta Rejoices Today!
- Thread starter cyndi
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They have drive through liquor stores in some parts of metro Atlanta. The metro area makes it difficult by having so many counties involved. City of Atlanta won't sell on Sundays until January 1st while local counties like Gwinnett and Dekalb won't even vote on it until March. Also, bars in the city of Atlanta have to close on Sundays at midnight but in Dekalb and Decatur you can stay open until 4. Not to mention that you can by at midnight on Sunday in the city of Atlanta but not until the following morning in those local areas. It's quite confusing here.
If memory serves me correct, the Jack Danial's distillery is in a dry county. That's right, no booze to drink.
Down here in Southern Georgia, I read the comments in the newspaper about how we are to keep Sundays for Jesus and to keep alcohol sales on Sunday "forbidden". What kills me is that if you head into the seedier parts of Albany you'll see the ne'er do wellers selling booze out of their cars. We need all the revenue boost we can get down here.
Interesting GA history: the reason we have so many counties is because GA has a law that says you must be able to reach the county courthouse and get home the same day by horse from the county line. Also, because counties are so autonomous, the laws in one county can completely contradict the laws of the neighboring county. The town I grew up in straddled Hall and Gwinnett and the only things in it were a bar, a trailer park, and a church. In the bar, it was illegal to fight on the Gwinnett Co side, so all disputes had to go to the other side of the bar in Hall Co.
Wow, I didn't realize Atlanta still had such laws. I knew they persisted in smaller communities but not a metropolitan area.
So, is a county like a suburb (or few of them) clustered together and separated by borders, or is it more like a village/s or group of small towns within a specific area?
Like us you have your individual states, then major cities within those states (we only have one per state) but I'm struggling to understand what physically makes a "county" - I'm guessing though it's what we'd call a "region" i.e. "The Barrossa Valley Winery Region" = takes in a whole lot of small towns that all produce wine, or "The Adelaide Hills Region", takes in whole lot of small towns/villages.
These regions don't have separate/different laws or regulations, just a bunch of people who all feel a sort of bond in good times and bad - just a large community without being defined I guess. I'm also thinking it would be similar to our "Council areas" where different councils would charge land tax, rates for sewerage, rubbish colleciton etc before they all amalgamated into one big massive council that would take in many regions in a vast area?
Like us you have your individual states, then major cities within those states (we only have one per state) but I'm struggling to understand what physically makes a "county" - I'm guessing though it's what we'd call a "region" i.e. "The Barrossa Valley Winery Region" = takes in a whole lot of small towns that all produce wine, or "The Adelaide Hills Region", takes in whole lot of small towns/villages.
These regions don't have separate/different laws or regulations, just a bunch of people who all feel a sort of bond in good times and bad - just a large community without being defined I guess. I'm also thinking it would be similar to our "Council areas" where different councils would charge land tax, rates for sewerage, rubbish colleciton etc before they all amalgamated into one big massive council that would take in many regions in a vast area?
It's sort of a regional collection of smaller cities and towns based around a central "county seat" which is the biggest city in the area. Because so much of our land is not incorporated into a city, we are governed by counties instead. For instance, the postal area I live in is actually NOT part of the city limits. We are "unincorporated Hall Co" but the closest post office services our area. Where I live, the entire area was farmland 10-15 years ago. Here in GA there are vast open spaces of nothingness. Counties govern and provide police, fire, and water services to those areas.
More than you ever wanted to know! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/County
and more than you ever wanted to know about GA: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georgia_(U.S._state)
and more than you ever wanted to know about GA: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georgia_(U.S._state)
Ah thanks Cyndi - that's interesting. Here it's the 7 State Governments who provide all those services, including roads, free medical care etc from our taxes on salaries, $22+ per 50gm pack of baccy and $30+ a bottle of grog. I may be wrong, but I think our way provides for a much more uniform and clear set of statewide laws that govern the people, and those who are in charge of managing the people (read corruption accountability etc).
It's our counties who simply provide rubbish collection, sidewalk maintenance and such like - for the privilege of that, we pay the "City Council" about $2k pa over and above the aforementioned taxes, as they're entirely separate, and last I heard, the county Mayor's salary was equal to or just shy of our State Premier's or Prime Minister's, which is an absolute outrage. Mind you, our PM should pay the people for allowing her to breathe!
It's our counties who simply provide rubbish collection, sidewalk maintenance and such like - for the privilege of that, we pay the "City Council" about $2k pa over and above the aforementioned taxes, as they're entirely separate, and last I heard, the county Mayor's salary was equal to or just shy of our State Premier's or Prime Minister's, which is an absolute outrage. Mind you, our PM should pay the people for allowing her to breathe!
The set up here can be quite difficult for a lot of people. The city I live in is in two counties and has its own laws that are separate from the county, in some instances. You can smoke in bars in Atlanta as long as they are in Fulton county but not the ones in Dekalb county. My bar is about a quarter mile from Dekalb so I bring my pipe to work.
Like lyst said, it is rather different but I like it. For instance, property taxes in Hall Co are 1/3 less than Gwinnett and Barrow (which are only a mile or two away from where I live.) We also don't have to have emission testing done on our cars and our Farm Bureau is rather prominent. We can choose our way of life based on the county that fits us the best without having to move a long distance.
Oh wow, the penny has just dropped, read up on Cyndi's links and realised, Georgia = Gone With The Wind (my favorite movie of all time).
I collected a some Civil War Memorabilia a few years ago and remember being shocked at how "primitive" they all were, considering how relatively recently the civil war was. Such an amazing thing it was too, virtually kinfolk against kinfolk, which goes beyond anything we here could ever begin to comprehend.
It's always confused me because we here always think of it as about slavery, but whenever I've spoken to an American, they insist it was not. I also found out that many Americans hate it when we refer to them as "Yankees" (which to us is the same as calling us Aussies which is fine and dandy) and we only use it in everyday conversation to shorten the term "American" whilst having little to no understanding of why they find it offensive, suffice to say I try not to use it these days lest it offends.
I collected a some Civil War Memorabilia a few years ago and remember being shocked at how "primitive" they all were, considering how relatively recently the civil war was. Such an amazing thing it was too, virtually kinfolk against kinfolk, which goes beyond anything we here could ever begin to comprehend.
It's always confused me because we here always think of it as about slavery, but whenever I've spoken to an American, they insist it was not. I also found out that many Americans hate it when we refer to them as "Yankees" (which to us is the same as calling us Aussies which is fine and dandy) and we only use it in everyday conversation to shorten the term "American" whilst having little to no understanding of why they find it offensive, suffice to say I try not to use it these days lest it offends.
Americans have a long legacy of being rebellious, and rightly so. We're the descendants of people who lost the war for their homeland and were transported to the "new world" and promised land for loyalty to the crown. That's why you'll find large pockets of Scottish and Irish families in certain places. The conquered folks were dropped off in the wilderness with nothing more than the clothes on their backs and mostly were sold into indentured servitude. We are a literal melting pot of cultures, and for a fairly young country, we tend to do alright. I find it hilarious that the US rebelled against the UK because of income and tobacco taxes totaling about 2% of a person's income. Now we pay about 33% in income taxes and more on tobacco and liquor.
The Civil War was more about economic freedom - not slavery. Only 2% of white people owned slaves. The rest were poor farmers and tradesmen. The US North was based on industry and manufacturing while the South was based on agriculture. It's a very complex issue that got turned into "white people wanted slaves and enlightened people said not gonna happen." However, the emancipation proclamation didn't apply to the Union until much later. It's still a very sore point here in the South because the Union army literally burned a path through the South and leveled entire cities. Redneck ingenuity what it is, we are now one of the major economic centers for technology and tend to be more stable economically than the North is.
As for the word Yankee, some people will get really riled up about it. LOL I call Shaun a Yankee all the time because he's from Ohio and I also tell people I'm from a mixed marriage - my Mom is a Yank from Pennsylvania and Dad is a good ole boy from South Carolina. Also, Mom was US Navy and Dad was US Air Force and mixing ranks like that is almost unheard of. (They met in school for a joint project between the military divisions to train meteorologists and got married 6 weeks later so they wouldn't be shipped out to different states.)
The Civil War was more about economic freedom - not slavery. Only 2% of white people owned slaves. The rest were poor farmers and tradesmen. The US North was based on industry and manufacturing while the South was based on agriculture. It's a very complex issue that got turned into "white people wanted slaves and enlightened people said not gonna happen." However, the emancipation proclamation didn't apply to the Union until much later. It's still a very sore point here in the South because the Union army literally burned a path through the South and leveled entire cities. Redneck ingenuity what it is, we are now one of the major economic centers for technology and tend to be more stable economically than the North is.
As for the word Yankee, some people will get really riled up about it. LOL I call Shaun a Yankee all the time because he's from Ohio and I also tell people I'm from a mixed marriage - my Mom is a Yank from Pennsylvania and Dad is a good ole boy from South Carolina. Also, Mom was US Navy and Dad was US Air Force and mixing ranks like that is almost unheard of. (They met in school for a joint project between the military divisions to train meteorologists and got married 6 weeks later so they wouldn't be shipped out to different states.)
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