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IS ALLOWING the Sunday sale of packaged alcoholic beverages going to sell more beer, wine and liquor? Seriously, think about that one for a moment.

After all, are not Georgians who enjoy such activities on Sunday (while watching football or such, not while going to church services) already trained by decades of “blue laws” to stock up on Saturday or earlier?

It’s annoying for them, to be sure, to be unable to make a purchase of a great wine they see on sale while grocery shopping on Sunday and similar, but let’s concede that for pretty much everyone (including those who are alcoholics) being denied “access” on Sunday is not much of any existing problem.

As all readers know by now, this newspaper is “wet” and long has been.

It supported beer sales, liquor sales, sales by the drink, service in restaurants on Sundays, later serving hours — all of which the City of Rome has while Floyd County remains comparatively semi-dry.

In other words, it opposes banning or limiting the sale of alcohol. That’s not because its editors like to get sloshed regularly but rather because drinking is an individual choice and this nation is about allowing citizens to make their own choices.

IN THE CASE of liquor, responsible choices of course. Becoming “impaired” on any day of the week and getting behind the wheel of a car is a choice that this newspaper opposes with equal vehemence.

All limitations on alcohol sales, while other reasons can more legitimately be argued, are largely based on religious reasons. Since government is not supposed to further, by law, the interests or positions of any particular religion, such “devil rum” ordinances should be deemed unconstitutional on their face though few elected politicians or judges dare make this sort of a statement. A law requiring every citizen to drink a glass of red wine a day for health reasons would be equally abhorrent to freedom of choice.

Georgia is now only one of three states remaining with a ban on Sunday package sales (the others are Indiana and Connecticut). In recent legislative sessions there have been regular efforts to allow Sunday sales, specifically by permitting “local option” if the hometown electorates agree.

That’s actually a compromise. Why should any majority deny any minority freedom to make its own decisions?

THESE HAVE failed, partly because Gov. Sonny Perdue, a teetotaler, has hinted strongly that he would veto such a proposal. But now the issue is back with an extra push behind it in a new argument: The reason to allow Sunday sales is that there’s going to be more taxes collected and, in these difficult budget times, the state needs every additional penny that it can get.

Well, if this restores what is supposed to be an individual freedom then more power to the argument. But, really, it’s an exaggeration and it is not the revenue but the principle that should be decisive.

Estimates are that allowing Sunday package sales could bring in an additional $4.8 million a year (Distilled Spirits Council of the United States). Assuming accuracy, that’s a drop in the beer bucket for a state now expected to face a $2 billion annual shortfall.

There’s no way Georgia is going to drink its way out of its budget crisis.

Much of the premise regarding revenue depends upon Georgians drinking more simply because they have an expanded purchasing opportunity. Frankly, such a change isn’t going to convince those who now don’t drink by choice to change their ways, those who do drink by choice to imbibe less responsibly, or those who routinely drink to excess to down more quantity before they reach the passing-out point.

IN OTHER WORDS, the premise is dubious although it would certainly allow food stores with alcohol aisles to compete more effectively against liquor stores — which, by the way, have opposed this because they don’t want to have to be open on Sundays just to compete with 24/7 supermarkets.

Georgia should have Sunday alcohol sales. It’s an individual freedoms issue, a keep-government-out-of-my-business issue. It’s not a revenue issue.

Please, just as with drinking itself, do it for the right reasons.