When I lived in Columbia, SC, we couldn't buy anything on Sunday mornings before noon. There were a few exceptions, mostly stuff like food and medicine. I tried to buy a broom and some cleaning supplies at 11am and every store that I went to told me to come back in an hour.
I felt like I was being punished for not being a church goer. It was an odd experience.
I lived in a 100% dry county when I went to college. It was about 22 miles to reach the nearest liquor store.
Which of course had unintended consequences. We drank. Fraternities turned into de-facto bars. We would pool our money on a Thursday and make the 35 minute drive to the liquor store. We'd typically spend $1500-$2000 on booze and truck it back to campus. The idea was the buy the booze we'd need for the weekend. We'd typically be completely out by sometime on Friday.
At that point some drunk college kid would decide to drive 22 miles to buy more booze. My university had multiple drunk driving fatalities every year because of this.
It's better now (restaurants can serve booze finally), but I'll never understand why that law existed in the first place.
In the UK, a common loophole for extending "Sunday trading" laws is that, while they can't exchange money for goods, they can let you in the store and collect the things you want to buy so you'll be ready for "opening" and can go straight to checkout.
That was partially it. The other part was the stores that were open during the prohibited times usually sold allowed items also (medicine, food, diapers, etc.)
As far as I know, the law has been repealed. Before I moved away I saw them implement Sunday beer and wine sales (still no sunday liquor sales) and do not remember having difficulty buying the previously restricted items on Sunday.
It was weird entering a Wal-Mart (or other large store) and seeing a large section of items roped off.
No no, really, I have exactly the same taste as some random guy in the state capital.