counties can matter a lot in some things...The recently mentioned Montgomery County, Maryland, where Charlie Baum & I live happens to be the ONLY county in the USA which operates it's own liquor authority. As a result, there are no privately owned "liquor" stores there, although there ARE privately owned beer & wine stores.....but you can't buy beer OR wine in grocery stores, whereas in Prince Georges County, (and in most of the Washington DC area, you can......and the whole area is one huge suburban area with few signs to tell you what jurisdiction you are in....you just have to know.

To complicate it more, there are several older *towns* (marked only by a few cute signs on major streets) within the area,(most notably, Garrett Park, Kensington and Tacoma Park) which are incorporated and have rules and controls separate from both the county AND the state! (They have their own traffic laws, refuse collection routines...etc..)

The result is, if I want to buy a bottle of Rum, I need to know not only where it can be sold, but what day of the week it is, and what time of day, as some streets are one-way only in Kensington during certain times on weekdays, to prevent "them" from driving through local streets to commute. (In my neighborhood, one minute North of Kensington, there can be no local traffic controls.)

I'm sure you in the UK can cite even more interesting cases...*grin*