I have a post up on Slog regarding the stupid, industry-backed liquor initiatives on the ballot this year — “Are Washington Voters About to Give Away the Store?” — and while the folks in the comment thread are mostly polite and everything, my God are they completely wrong.
Looks like I’m going to have to spend some time on Slog, using Slog, to oppose the wrongness that has been perpetuated on Slog.
Sorry, Goldy, you are dead wrong on these. Moreover, supporting legal MJ and opposing retail sales of booze is hypocritical.
If you REALLY want to be consistent, then propose to move all tobacco sales to the State Liquor Stores. I suppose next after that we would want these regulated agencies to take over gun sales?
I know that there are some jobs issues with the proposals and that they need legislation to assure that WASTATE does not lose money on the deal but the answer to that is available by legislation too. Not only can we tax COSTCO and QFC’s sales, they are in the business of making $$$. A more innovative retail channel will esp have an incentive to sell more of the high priced stuff … single malt scotch, Husky brand Vodka, etc, etc. Those sales bring in tax dollars.
On last point,m the argument that the state should protect us all from bad drinks. I think the date should protect us form what we do to each other. If you want to buy a gun, then I want the effin thing registered and regulated to protect me. If you want a bottle of Glendronach in your hose, then I have NO right to say anything about that as long as you don’t drive and drink.
SJ @1,
Hypocritical? Have you even read my posts here on the subject?!
I’ve proposed legally selling marijuana in the State Stores! And it’s hard to do that without, um, State Stores.
my neighborhood wine shop people have said they’ll almost certainly go out of business if the 2nd one passes, and many smaller wineries will be forced to deal with the duopoly of in-state distributors on ruinous financial terms rather than self-distribute to small wine shops (if any are still around).
I have no reason to doubt them.
What do you expect? It’s Dan Savage’s blog. It took him years of very active heterosexuality to figure out he was gay. (Don’t say bisexual!) He thought Islamofascists were under his bed and called for invading Iraq. He thought the best reason to vote for the monorail was to say F— You to the establishment.
The rot starts at the top.
props to goldy for edumucating the lazy sea times reporters about reichert’s brain:
http://seattletimes.nwsource.c.....rt06m.html
if you read the times piece, you will see how they try to rehabilitate reichert through jay inslee. i call bullshit.
David,
I have read your posts and, in this case, disagreed there as well.
The only compelling argument for the state liquor stores is that booze is so dangerous it needs a state agent to sell it. If evidence exists that WA and NH are a lot more safe than Oregon and Mass, then I have not see it.
There is no scientific reason I know to “control” MJ anymore than there is a reason to control coffee or a gawdful number of over the counter drugs that have modest effects on behavior. In a sense MJ is more like porn, would you want that in the State stores too?
The only rational issue with sales of MJ is safety. This is really a food (FDA or Ag) issue since the unregulated sale of GVM I(green vegetable matter) opens its users to risks from the components of GVM other than THC. The obvious concern is that smoked MJ contains a lot of the same tars that result in cancer and heart disease from cigarettes.
Put another way … if MJ belongs in the state liquor stores than so does garlic and coffee.
@3 …
So, we need sate liquor stores to protect businesses form competition?
Geee ….
Lets open state hardware stores too.
Having lived in states with private liquor stores, I whole-heartedly support Washington’s current system.
Here, I don’t wake up to daily news reports of the robberies/shootings in and around the liquor stores. I don’t neon signs blazing “Liquor – Open 24 hours!” two or three times a block on major urban thoroughfares. I don’t see reports of liquor control agents using minors, asking them to make buys in stores, then arresting the clerks (but not the owners) for selling to minors. I don’t see stores with bars on the windows and a big guy with a shotgun on his lap sitting just inside the store entrance, trying to dissuade robberies. I don’t hear of liquor stores paying off the local cops on the beat in order to have them turn their backs while they sell liquor to the visably drunk, the underaged, or engage in selling other illegal drugs on the side.
A little inconvenience in buying liquor isn’t a big price to pay for the much more pleasant environment we see here in Washington.
I heard a radio commercial in support of the initiative. The woman said something about liquor stores being in out of the way places and open at odd hours. Then went on to say that chain stores and 7-11s would do better at policing underage drinking. Well, maybe it’s the out of the way stores and odd hours that have been cutting down on underage drinking.
The state should not be in this business any more than they should be in the business of Wholeselling/marketing/retailing automobiles.
Goldy, you suffer from a bad case of Obama-itis. It can never be possible that people understand your position and disagree with it. The only possible explanation is that you didn’t “educate” everyone sufficiently until your brilliant, unassailable logic sunk into their thick craniums.
I never understood why the state need to have literal physical stores to sell (insert good here).
The state can tax liquor, cigs or marijuana all they want. They can regulate how many liquor retail licenses exist, where they can be located, etc. The state can control pretty much everything about how it’s sold if they want.
What is the reason for actually physically owning and running the storefront? I just really haven’t heard the answer to this. Regulation, sure! Actual stores, why?
The same reason would apply to bars too…why doesn’t the state own and run all bars? Why are there “private” bars? Because the state and city/county governments regulates bars, everything from their hours, to how they can sell their drinks, etc. There’s no need for the state to actually OWN or RUN every bar. I just can’t see the logical difference between Madison Pub and a private liquor store….why one can be private and another has to be run by the state. They both sell me beer and/or vodka…one has to be drunk there and the other lets me take it home. So what?
If anything bars are MORE dangerous because I have to consume the liquor there…and then (almost certainly) drive home.
7. SJ spews:
Gosh SJ, you are starting to sound like a Tea Partier!!
Government does not create jobs…but they sure do a great job at stifling the Free Enterprise System.
The problem is these are not citizen led initiative but initiatives proposed and financed by the very industries that will profit the most. Much like an Eyman initiative this one dangles the carrot in front of all us to vote yes because it seems like an attractive proposal. You’ll have the convenience of being able to go anywhere to buy alcohol. You be able to find products currently not available. The state program that is financially self supporting and provides revenue to the general fund should be scrapped.
I’ll grant that the state should probably be out of the wholesale liquor business, but are these initiatives really the answer?
Having lived in California for 4 years while attending college I have to say that I didn’t like my Safeway (Vons down there) carrying gallon jugs of vodka. They didn’t carry any boutique or “high end” liquor. They carried the stuff that will make people drunk without spending a lot of money.
It really isn’t underage buying that is a challenge but loss from theft. A grocery store has multiple entrances, numerous underage workers, and many other avenues for booze to disappear from inventory. Convenience stores usually only have one clerk at night and already lose beer to shoplifting. One bottle of gin is much easier to smuggle out than a six pack of beer.
The commenters on slog are a weird mix. I think a lot of them are just urban posers who actually don’t give a rats ass about the stuff they are commenting on and enjoy holding views they have not processed through the analytical part of their brains.
Good luck turning them around. They take pride in being exactly as they are.
rhp
Jeeez …
Arguments from personal taste or anecdotes are what I expect from the TP ers (Halloween pun intended.
Hell, I dislike seeing any part of MY Lakeshore occupied by some wealthy person with the money to build and block my access. THAT is a better argument for creating a state run shores district then you are making because you do not like seeing billboards selling 90 proof likker.
I wish we on the left would insist on the sort of consistency that we wish our TP wielding population needs. State liquor stores make perfect sense if and only iff we use this as a way to control sales of all similarly risky merchandise.
In that spirit, and to make more $$ for the state, lest run the following intiatives up the flag to the meme of WABOOZE ….
WAGUNS
WAJAVA
WAPORN
WASKIS
WAPOT
WABOOKY
I suggest all of these be part of a semi-independent, state owned institution patterned after the Universities and Colleges. WAVICE, the overall bodt, would be .. like the UDub, able to MAKE a profit .. w/o paying taxes!
Lets go one step further … e could combine WAVICE with the UDub!! That would solve all the morals and funding issues for college athletics and all the income from WAVICE could go to replace the dwindling support the UW gets WASTATE now!
Cross Post from The-Ave.US
# 9: “…Then went on to say that chain stores and 7-11s would do better at policing underage drinking….”
It’s hard to believe they could find an announcer to deliver that line with a straight face, no matter how professional they were, or how much they were paid.
We can see for ourselves how well Enron did in policing it’s energy sales, and wall street did in policing itself against the bundling of bad loans into debenture securites.
SJ appears to be pissy about having to go further than his corner to purchase alcohol in amounts significantly stronger than 20%. He wants to make a free market case, without actually putting any effort into suggesting that. “If we have this, we need this” is utter bullshit and he knows it. There is a substantive difference between amounts of alcohol available; there is a substantive difference between those that are selling the alcohol; there is a substantive difference between those that purchase the alcohol. Addressing that by shrugging shoulders and saying it must be an either/or problem is weak at best.
Yesterday i rode on a bus full of tax cheats, who rode the free amerind casino bus to the res in Idaho, to purchase non-taxed tobacco products. They then rode the city bus to get home. In the either/or world, the revenuers should be sitting at the stop, or the state should just end the taxes on tobacco. How does this make sense?
I personally don’t care too much about this initiative. I think that Goldy and rhp @8 make good points against, but I also think that the points for passing the initiatives are pretty compelling.
The only thing that really rubs me the wrong way is that this is yet another example of big businesses hijacking the initiative process. However, in my mind there are just more important initiatives on the ballot this election cycle, such as I-1082; which again is an example of businesses hijacking the initiative process.
Of course the folks at Slog want the liquor stores privatized, they’re a bunch of fucking alcoholics.
Of course the folks at Slog want the liquor stores privatized, they’re a bunch of fucking alcoholics.
Which part is it that bothers you Michael, that they’re alcoholics or that they’re fucking?
22
I think what he is saying is that the folks at Slog fuck alcoholics. At least, that’s the way I read it.
@14
Where did you live? My Vons and the nearby Pavillions sold Kettle One, Belvedere and other super premiums along with the handle bottles of Smirnoff. And that was just down the street from the place with 120+ single malt scotches. Everything from $20 crap to single barrel pre-war special releases retailing $4,000.
You know who the “public safety” ninnies remind me of? How many bars went out of business after the smoking ban? Weren’t we assured that “every smoking drinker is going to stay home. It will kill jobs.”
I posted them before on HA and don’t have the inclination to re-google (Puddy can do it for me I’m sure.) California has LOWER incidences of drunk driving arrests and fatalities per capita than Washington. So how is the state system keeping us safe?
@22, 23
Hehehe… Just seeing if I could kick up a little dust. Have fun with it. ;->
@8 – I don’t see reports of liquor control agents using minors, asking them to make buys in stores, then arresting the clerks (but not the owners) for selling to minors.
Actually, WSLCB agents routinely use minors in stings. They ticket rather than arrest, but they do conduct stings.
I used to cover the capitol in a state with private liquor stores. The liquor distributors had the state legislature IN THEIR POCKET. And there was NO real competition. Liquor distributors tend to carve state up into territories, and the liquor store owners still have to pay monopoly wholesale prices. Illegal, sure, but they’re very good at paying the legislator to look the other way. You see it in state after state.
I prefer a state monopoly to a private mafia monopoly any day. I’m voting NO.
@20
There, fixed that for you.
@7
The issue is I-1105 was written by a couple of large beer, wine, and liquor distributors to favor their interests. It would create the same system that exsists in many states where large distributors have carved the state up into territories and operate as virtual monopolies with both manufacturers and retailers at their mercy.
Want to make a specialty small-batch wine, beer, or spirit? Sure, but good luck on getting any disribution in this state. After all the big distributors only want to be bothered with the highest volume products sold by the largest breweries, wineries, and distillers.
Want to open a specialty, wine, beer, or liquor store? Good luck with that. You aren’t going to be able to have a better selection than the local supermarket or Wal-Mart since the distibutors can’t be bothered with carrying anything but the highest volume products from the largest manufacturers. Even better those same distributors can give companies like Safeway, Costco, and Wal-Mart volume discounts so there is no way you can compete on price either.
# 18. spyder spews:
Nope. We have a well stocked home bar and use so little hard stuff that I generally replenish a bottle or so every 5-6 years.
FWIW, the only hard booze I like is frozen Vodka and when I am somewhere woith good vodkas I may bring a bottle home.
I am actually not a free market fella .. I prefer socialism. BUT, the idea that booze is the best place for ad hoc socialism makes no sense to me.
What were you trying to say here?
I have not the least idea what you are saying here either? Were the tobacco stores community owned? Do you also support creating WASTATE customs hsops on the Canadian and Oregonian borders to see that products bought out of sate for use here pay tax here???????
@ 27. Olaf spews:
paraphrased:
I prefer a state monopoly to a private mafia
Try buying an RC cola on campus.
@29
Another annecdotal myth.
Every been to Wine Expo in Los Angeles? City beer in San Francisco? Plumpjack wine in Noe Valley S.F.? These are incredibly sucessful specialty wine/beer stores in a i-1105 atmosphere. There’s a huge market for small distributors who handle ONLY artisan products in CA.
It could reasonably be argued that I-1105 would CREATE jobs as entrepreneurs step into the gap that the big distributors don’t want to deal with. Become the sole distributor in the Puget sound region for Anchor distilling, Springbank single offering scotch and a well cutivated portfolio of craft beers and wines from in and out of state. Then see how many restaraunts and specialty shops start banging your phone.
Think of it this way. The Melrose Market shops can’t compete with Whole Foods or PCC or Metropolitan market on price. So they don’t exist?
The market for Artisanal products is growing. Why assume that it will just stop here in WA?
#7 Chris …
see my post at 31.
I fully agree that our current system DISCOURAGES small businesses. BUT that issue is hardly limited to booze.
When did the last Ma and Pa hardware CHAIN give way to Home Depot? You got a good local apothecary to recommend? Hell, I can remember when you could buy hamburgers, REAL ones, at stands everyplace 9nstead of the burgermats.
What does any of this issues have to do with state booze stores? Should the state also limit sales of hardware to encourage Hardwick’
s?
26: True, for beer and wine sold at private stores. But not at state liquor stores, where the store owner (the people of the State of Washington) and the store clerk (a state employee) have absolutely no profit motive increase sales by selling to minors.
That’s kindof the point.
When I was in college, I worked for a while as a cook & bartender at a local hangout just off campus. The drinking age was 18, I was 18 when I was hired and 19 when I quit, about nine months later.
One night I was the only one working the bar, one other employee was making pizzas in the kitchen. It was crowded, the students were arriving for fall classes which hadn’t yet started, and there was a line at the bar for drinks. I was checking ID’s, because a lot of freshmen hadn’t yet turned 18. The owner turned red in the face, and told me to “quit that sh*t, you haven’t got time for that, just serve the drinks!”.
I was off work the next night when the Liquor Control Board came in, they cited the place for overcrowding and then went through the whole place checking everyone’s ID. When they were finished they arrested the bartender for several counts of serving minors. No charge for the owner, he just pointed to the piece of paper he gave us when we were hired which said we never supposed to serve drinks to minors.
I quit shortly after that.
@34
And you’re describing a problem that could easily be remedied by act of legislature.
‘Course the Rs would run the following ad…”Can you beleive the Democrats in Olympia. They’re killing family owned business by insisting that only certain types of business owners obey the law. Tell Governor Gregoire and the Democrats in Olympia to stop messing with business’ ability to make illegal profits.”
Think it would work?
By the way, I had a chance to talk to the folks at the state of Washington Liquor Control Board because we were looking at exporting some Washington wines and importing some Asian liquors. They were very helpful and seemed quite open to the introduction of new products, either local or from elsewhere. Like every other store, they don’t have shelf space for every product, but they are willing to give them a fair consideration.
Which is probably a better reception than you would get if you tried to introduce your specialty product into any private chain store. Their prime shelve space is reserved for the distributors who pay big bucks for the space. Heck, just try getting an independent soft drink on the shelves at Safeway!
@36
And yet Jones and Dry somehow managed to hit the big time.
Further evidence that the mere existence of distributors is the death knell for independent or artisan producers.
I will stop flogging this horse now. It started to stink yesterday and hasn’t moved in three.
I think the state should own all blogs.
@36 rhp
SURE …
but to follow your logic, we should just socialize everything.
I think the evidence is clear. Socialism works as a way of shaping markets so they compete. Untrammeled capitalism ha never worked because it leads to inherited wealth and monopolies.
Socialism as a “single payer” system or “single provider” only works where it is needed because services that are not remunerative are in everyone’s interest. That is how things work in most of the industrialized world .. other than the US.
The weird idea seems to me that socialist booze is needed because booze is immoral. By that standard, lets socialized prostitution and add it to my list of WAVICE industries! Imagine the revue stream from the Husky Hores and the improvement in out ability to control slavery and STD!
Of course, under the repricans state hores would have to only participate in heterosexual acts that avoided orifices other than those intended by God.
@32
Sure, several three-tier states have managed to keep distribution from becoming a de-facto oligpoly, on the other hand there are other states where the situation is exactly as I’ve described. Small producers can’t get any distribution because the big distributors can’t be bothered, and there aren’t many specialty stores because the big stores have all the same stuff.
1105 would FORCE small brewers and wineries who can currently sell directly to retailers, bars, and restaurants to go through distributors.
1105 sets up a legal framework that favors large distributors and allows them to carve the state into territories (by only allowing “authorized” distributors). But then what do you expect by an initiative written by two of the largest beer, wine, and liquor distributors in the country?
No wonder small wine shops are worried, it isn’t competition from Costco that worries them (they already compete with Costco) it is getting screwed by large distributors pulling the same stunts they pull in many other states.
Passing 1105 is far worse than passing 1100 (and both are far worse than having the legislature clean up the mess with some sanity). But then initiatives written by industry to create a favorable legal environment for their businesses are usually a bad thing.
@ 34 – What state was that? That’s a horrible story. That wouldn’t happen here – Everyone gets fined, and the owner wouldn’t be able to point to some ‘agreement’ – in any case, everyone involved, owner, bartender, cashier at the grocery store et al already, in effect, made that agreement with the state when they paid for the state sanctioned training to get their license.
@36
It’s simple. Don’t go to Safeway. Niche stores will pick up the specialty stuff and it will be made available if it sells. In Duvall there is a locally owned grocery store that was forecast to go belly up when Safeway arrived. Ya know what? They decided not to try and compete and sell stuff Safeway cannot be bothered with. They are doing just fine last I heard. We already have that big behemoth that stifles originality and doesn’t cater to niche customers. It’s called the state store.
No, I am afraid you are falling into what the Greeks called the classical fallacy of the “slippery slope”, as well as another fallacy where you go from the specific to the general, without pausing to prove the link in between.
I am arguing for a state-owned monopoloy of the distribution and sale of a product which has multiple harmful effects on the public. Public policy has long supported the notion that alchohol sales to the inebriated and minors should be prohibited. I’m of the opinion that in the limited section of the market (hard liquor by the bottle, as opposed to wind and beer or sale by-the-drink) would best serve that policy by resticting the sellers to state-owned stores. There are some inherent inefficiencies in that, I grant – not all products can be represented on the store shelves, and the state stores might not be as convenient in hours and location as some might wish. But in this limited instance I believe that the good outweighs the inefficiencies.
I also wouldn’t want private businesses in some other areas, such as granting building permits and driver’s licenses, because of the potential for fraud and abuse (the private companies would end up competing with one another for who enforced the regulations in the most lax manner). But it’s not a natural progression from my argument to the argument for socialism in all areas.
If the question was whether the state should take over selling liquor, I’d probably look at it differently. But the state is already doing so, and it’s making money. It isn’t broken, it’s just in the way of some groups’ interests. We don’t need the financial loss right now of all times.
43. rhp6033 spews:
Or you have trouble dealing with metaphors.
This would be very nice, IF
a. there was evidence that the tactic does diminish teen driving accidents in WAstate or even that it decreases teen alcohol ingestion.
b. there were a rational, other than focus on this specific target, for a focus on booze. By your logic all products we want to keep from teens should be treated this way .. I would argue that cigs, with their likley life long effects, are a bigger issue than booze.
Apples and oranges or perhaps burgers and movie tickets. The state creates licensing, whoever it has administer the license. BTW in WAstate we DO have private firms that issue licenses.
@44 Tos
I have not seen a convincing argument that there would be a loss in revenue and there might be a gain.
@46 SJ
Looking at the fiscal impact statement in the voter’s guide: “Over five fiscal years, total state revenues are estimated to decrease in the range of $76 million to $85 million (as shown in the table below).” “Under current law, counties and cities receive a share of state liquor board profits and state liquor excise tax collections. Therefore, counties and cities will also experience revenue decreases estimated in the range of $180 million to $192 million over five fiscal years, (as shown below.)”
@47 TOS
I saw similar numbers.
These numbers seem to me to be so close to zero as to be nearly meaningless. Take 80m, divide by 5 years and you get $16 million/yr!
The local tax is a red herring since the local municipalities will still collect the same taxes (assuming the final law is written logically), PLUS more if .. as expected .. private stores sell more ..esp of the higher priced stuff.
My own feeling is that this something the state dems have effed up. In hard times like these, reforms that MAKE money are easy to pass. Privatization done properly would likley be popular withe everyone not in the SEIU AND could bring in revenue.
Now take the current property value of the state stores and the current value of the long term encumbrances due to the system (eg pensions for high paid state clerks), add in the assumption that sales (and therefore taxes) will increase … I suspect no one actually knows.
Furthermore, if the state owns any of the property where SLS are, then there is the realized value from sale of capital.
……………….
@44 & 47.the fiscal impact statement is, at this point, an excercise in speculation only.
The text of I-1105 directs the liquor control board to recommend to the legilature a per litre tax that make privatisation revenue neutral. The measure further directs the liquor control board to recommend a rate for a distributor license. The measure directs the liquor control board to consider the increased revenue from the sale of distributor licenses in their taxation rate recommendation. The measure further directs the liquor control board to recommend new rates for distributor licenses to keep the measure revenue neutral.
Adopting new tax and licensing rates is indeed up to the legislature.
So, if you assume that the legislature won’t set liquor taxes and new license fees on the liquor control board’s recommendation and instead give away the revenue becuase the Rs scream about new “unfair” liquor taxes and “unfair” business taxes via the licenses and that arguement wins the day, THEN AND ONLY THEN will the state lose money.
The measure gives the legislature a year to work this out. So, a perfectly reasonable expectation is distributor fees will go up AND there will be more as a pure number of distributor licenses granted AND the retail sales tax will go up.
The combination of both will (as the recommendation by the LCB is required to do) insulate the state from decreased revenue. Unless the new Tea-Bag enhanced legislature is monumentally stupid.
@40
You’re still assuming that no distributor wants to step into the gap created.
Annecdotally, there is a collective of Southern California breweries that set up a distributorship that handles their products. Legally it’s a seperate entity. One of the reasons they did this is that one in the group is a mini-chain where not all outlets actually brew. So they were in a situation where they had to sell kegs from the brewery to a distributor who would then re-sell them to their affiliated non-brewing outlets.
Don’t know if I’m the only certified beer nerd on HA but don’t underestimate the demand for craft beer and wine. The distributors know the market here. If they only carry Hogue, Redhook and Jim Beam they won’t survive. There will be another distributor willing to kick their ass by offering Quelceda Creek, Black Raven and Maker’s Mark. And I’ve never run across a restaraunt, grocery or bar who relied solely on one distributor’s portfolio.
4. Ed Schneiderman–here here and don’t forget that Dan also liked the monorail cause he was less likely to sit next to a smelly poor person.
Initiative 1100 does not impede or reduce the WSLCB authority to regulate the sale and distribution of alcohol. Time place and manner restrictions remain the province of the liquor board. Claims that either of these initiatives will result in 24hr liquor marts are simply false. These claims and many others just like them are a great discredit to anyone who knowingly passes them along.
Goldy you and many of your loyal commenters in these threads are doing harm to your credibility when you engage in these false scare tactics. You ought to know better. This sort of tactic is a bell that cannot be un-rung.
@50
There is no guarantee if 1105 passes that the end result will resemble one of the better three-tier states rather than one of the worst.
We do know it makes the situation for small brewers and wineries worse than the current one by banning direct sales to retailers, restaurants, and bars.
We do know it will allow exclusive disribution agreements (which I do not believe is the case now).
We do know I-1105 was written by two of the largest liquor, wine, and beer distributors in the country.
What do you think the chances are that they’ve stacked the deck in their favor? What do you think the chances are that they will lobby the legislature heavily to ensure any alcohol taxes, license fees, and rules favor the big boys over the small fry?
Say what you will about Steven Sharkansky, but I don’t think he was carrying water for any particular group (other than maybe those of a shared ideological bent) when he wrote I-1100.
and if both pass??
@53
There’s equally no guarantee that in the year of status quo mandated by i-1105 an organized beer and wine lobby can’t kick the legislature into action they should have taken three decades ago before we got to a ballot initiative.
There’s nothing in I-1105 that would prevent a bill that makes every producer of wine, beer and distilled spirits, under whatever number of barrels they want to call artisan, eligible to apply for a distributor license.
What I KNOW is that I-1105 was written by the largest distributors in and out of state and mandates the legislature get out of the liquor business in one year. You nor I know what the legislature will choose to do in that year.
Given the polls show that it is likely to pass, small producers money RIGHT NOW is better spent trying to level the playing filed in November 2011 than shooting the wad losing now and being demoralized when the actual fight in the next legislative session makes the real rules.
All I’m saying is that the doom predictions on both revenue and small players in the industry is not a known outcome if I-1105 passes. The Washington Brewers Association should get out in front of this NOW instead of claiming that passage is the automatic death of the industry.
And it still stands from a consumer point of view. Most of us are used to our local Fred Meyer (mine is particularly good) or the corner market having a stellar beer selection. We won’t accept Bud/Miller/Coors/Redhook. The supermarkets/distributors who try to go that route will lose.
Goldy, your main argument seems to be we cant afford to lose the revenue.
But doesnt that really mean we just need to raise taxes?
Assuming tax rates end up being around what they are now, the revenue we will lose is the retail markup.
And personally, I am highly dubious of the underlying logic of the State being in the retail business.
If its essential for the State to sell liquor, because its a potentially dangerous product, then it would make equal sense for the state to sell pharmaceuticals, or chainsaws, or, as mentioned, firearms, or tobacco- all of which are potentially dangerous as well.
Its true- we, as a State, make a profit right now from selling alcohol, and we will lose that State income.
In a rational society, we would simply raise taxes on, oh, I dont know- Soda Pop or something- and make up for the lost income. Maybe tax the sales of airplanes?
But we cannot raise any taxes, since we are held hostage by a few wingnuts. Still just needing the money does not seem to me to be sufficient justification to be running State stores.