North Carolina’s first ABC store

North Carolina entered a new era in its effort to regulate alcoholic beverage sales when the state’s first Alcohol Beverage Control (ABC) store opened in Wilson on July 2, 1935, where over 800 bottles of liquor were sold.

It had been a long journey for the state, which had regulated the sale of liquors in one form or the other since the 1700s.

In fact, North Carolina became the first state to adopt Prohibition in 1909, superseding the 1920 Eighteenth Amendment. That amendment was repealed in 1933, but North Carolina was one of two states not to ratify the appeal.

– Ron Smith, Founder, S&A Communications