With the economy in the drink and state coffers running dry, Gov. Gregoire has proposed adding 10 new state-run liquor stores, while allowing the sale of alcohol related items like cork screws and ice, in an effort to pump up revenues. (Existing law currently prohibits State Stores from selling ice? That’s just plain silly.) At the same time, kinda-sorta Democratic Sen. Tim Sheldon will propose shuttering the State Store system entirely, and privatizing the sale of liquor, because… you know… there’s no time better than a $6 billion revenue shortfall to hand off $322 million in revenues to the private sector.
I’ve often heard my fellow Washingtonians complain about their inability to buy a bottle of Makers Mark at 3AM at the local 7-Eleven, but coming from Pennsylvania, with an even stricter state store system—grocery stores can’t sell beer or wine either—I don’t find it much of an inconvenience. After all, it’s not like the stuff goes bad, so you can always stock up… and if you really need a bottle of rotgut at 3AM, perhaps it’s best that it’s not so freely available anyway?
But what really galls me in nearly every debate about the state store system, are the knee-jerk arguments from the invisible hand crowd about unfair state competition:
The proposals, particularly increases in nonliquor sales at state-run stores, have drawn fire from grocers as an anti-competitive encroachment on private business.
[… ] Jan Gee, president of the Washington Food Industry, said the independent grocers belonging to her organization would be hurt by increases in the number of state-run liquor stores. … “We want them out of competition with us,” Gee said. “We want them out of beer and wine, and we don’t want them to even be considering an expansion into what they call bar products.”
Yeah… sure… the state sells a limited selection of beer and wine from drab storefronts staffed by well-paid, union workers with good benefits. How could independent grocers possibly compete with that?
I mean really… if a private business can’t out-compete the state in the sale of ice and corkscrews, perhaps it shouldn’t be in business in the first the place? They’re gonna have to come up with a better argument than that.
The appropriateness of a state monopoly on the sale of liquor, well, that’s an entirely different debate, but given alcohol’s quantifiable impact on public health and safety, there are plenty of strong arguments in favor of the status quo, however inconvenient it might be to late-night boozers or “antiquated” it may appear to Sen. Sheldon. In fact, if we really want to increase revenues and cut government expenses, I’d not only keep the state store system and its liquor monopoly intact, but expand it to include a state monopoly on the legal sale of marijuana.
Our current state store system grew out of the end of prohibition on alcohol. I’d say it’s past time to end the failed prohibition on pot as well… and then tax hell out of it.
state needs to push the medical marijuana into a california style system where anybody can get their weed card for $100 (or better yet just full legalization and taxes), legalize prostitution, and sell itself with “come to washington: we’ve got blackjack, hookers, weed, and if you don’t want anymore you can off yourself.”
Gregoire seems to be grasping at straws.
More liquor stores! Combine back office functions of museums in Tacoma and Spokane- which get half their funding from the state (net savings: not much) and put the 50% of of their funding that comes from private donors at risk. Close some state parks, even though outdoor rec is a money maker for the state (net saving: less than zero in the long run). Put off long planned and much needed improvements to the I-5 Hwy 16 interchange, but spend tons of money that we don’t have, don’t want and don’t need on a big dig in Seattle.
The folks down in Oly need to take a deep calming breath and think through what they’re doing.
@1
That’s what I call thinking things through and coming up with a plan!
Seriously, what difference does it make if the state stores sell ice? What is it – a buck a bag?
I don’t see it as a major revenue source for the state, but the private stores want it as a loss-leader, hoping that those stopping by for ice will pick up a few other things along the way (chips, salsa, hot wings, etc?)
I see your point about losing more money, but one could argue that it could be made up by an increase of the number of stores, thereby increasing the tax return generated by increased sales. They might have $322 in revenue, but is that the figure after all lease, employee, and product expenses are accounted for?
I am concerned the poor and minority communities, which have typically been exploited by liquor stores, will once again be the target this expansion of liquor stores.
Getting the State out of the liquor business is a great idea! We still get all the tax revenue without the overhead of renting space and paying the employees… makes sense to me
I am concerned about the poor and minority republican candidates. Their dramatic loss on Nov 4 has driven most of them to drink. They will be exploited now.
I wonder if I could have a liquor store installed in my home.
I’ve got to check myself into the hospital.
I’m agreeing with that odious troll.
Liquor stores are a blight and a magnet for crime. Ever been to California? They’re everywhere, ugly and depressing. I personally never got a taste for any alcoholic beverage stronger than beer or wine. I’m a happy camper with things as they are.
I like the liquor laws in this state and I believe they’re a role model for the eventual decriminalization of pot and other kid-stuff intoxicants.
Rush Limbaugh is hoping this leads to less strict laws controlling Oxycontin and Viagra.
This isn’t going anywhere. Special interests have been trying to privatize the state liquor stores since before I arrived in Washington over 40 years ago. It’s been voted on by the people at least once. They’ve never come close; and there’s not a snowball’s chance in hell that legislators will make a gift of $322 million of state revenue to private interests in the midst of a $6 billion revenue shortfall. This is nothing but grandstanding by Sheldon to make a few well-heeled donors and constituents happy.
@5 $322 million is the net profit that supports state programs. It’s a big chunk of money, more than the state earns from selling timber from state lands. If we gifted it to private interests, it would have to be made up by raising taxes.
@6 We can solve that problem by siting all the new stores in places like Bellevue, Medina, and Mill Creek to encourage affluent people getting wiped out in the stock market to drown their sorrows in jugs of Chivas. We could even give them the ice gratis.
@7 You’d still get the tax revenue but you’d lose the $322 million a year of profits. Are you in favor of raising taxes by $322 million a year to make up that revenue loss? Which taxes do you want to raise?
@15 We wouldn’t lose $322 million a year, we’d retain those taxes and fees and reduce expenses by not having staff and rent, which means there would be MORE revenue.
What a shithead linking of state-owned liquor storees and marijuana legalization! Stick to the fucking issue Goldy. Having the state in competition with retailers is regressive. You progressives oughta understand that. A few corner liquor stores in the hands of some entrepreneurs means more jobs and more taxes collected AND fewer tax dollars going out for state union benefits. It is ironic that Gregoire is OK with more state-owned liquor stores but thought too many slot machines in Indian-owned casinos was a clear and present danger. Is she planning to leave another hundred million on the tables in her fearless fight against alcohol?
Yep, I can remember, whistfully, the private liquor stores in my home state, which had private liquor stores. A liquor store on every block of the major highways. Garish signs advertising their presence. The prostitutes hanging out around the entrances. The guy sitting on the stool at the doorway, with a 12-gauge shotgun in his lap, in the (often futile) hope of discouraging the inevitable 2:00 a.m. robberies. The minors also hanging around, waiting for the right clerk to come on duty that they know will sell to them without asking for I.D., if they slip them a few bucks extra. Hoping that if you go inside to buy some liquer, the place doesn’t get held up while you are in there (such holdups tended to be rather violent). The morning police blotters listing the number of assaults, arrests, and shootings at those stores (typically two or three every night, and that’s for a city the size of Tacoma).
Yep, what would life be like without such an interesting night life? Why, it would be kind of like it is here!
4. rhp6033 spews:
The problem rhp is that it would take 3 State Employees to sell that bag of ice!
If you LEFTIST PINHEADED KLOWNS had your way, the STATE would be directly involved in providing ALL goods & services. What a Utopian Socialist Wonderland! Right?
The State should get out of everything the private sector can provide and get back to infrastructure & public safety…PERIOD!
The last thing we need is more readily available drugs & alcohol. Perhaps it will help numb you KLOWNS up a bit….as you begin to understand nothing Obama & Gregoire have in mind will make your lives easier or better.
Work harder, take risks…that’s the American way to get ahead…not whining.
NEWS FLASH!!
Gregoire has ordered State Employees to look thru their desk doors and dig under couch cushions looking for change in a futile bid to offset her $8 BILLION additional spending rampage the past 4 years.
The chickens have come home to roost!
Hey Goldy–
While your in your Big Government mode at warp speed, be sure to ask Gregoire to create a Department of AssWipers…you could be the head Goldy!
The very first Washington State Director of AssWiping. You could run around with an open checkbook looking for ways to buy peoples votes by giving them free shit and services…including wiping their ass for them.
And you, too, can be like Cynical. That is, have a really bad case of narcissistic personality disorder and be too looped to even know it.
Cynical @ 19
Your inability to understand your opposition bodes well for your opposition. Keep painting Democrats as godless socialists pining away for a nanny state. You help our cause considerably by missing the mark by so much.
Cynical @ 19 said: “Work harder, take risks…that’s the American way to get ahead…not whining.”
You think that’s worked for the American workers over the past few decades? I don’t think even you believe that. Workers can work hard, take risks, and have the mat pulled out from under them at any time management wants to goose the quarterly earnings by outsourcing their services in order to boost the stock prices right before their bonus strike price is set.
Notice any difference between the utter bullshit, lies and Faux News propaganda that Cyn spews now compared with what he spewed before the election? Good – there isn’t any. It’s all the same shit. And look where it got him.
His side was ….
R E J E C T E D – M O C K E D – L A U G H E D A T!
They were….
R E M O V E D from power and made I R R E L E V A N T
just like him.
Keep it up asswipe. You and your ilk almost got us a SUPER majority in the Congress. At this rate, you’ll finish the job by 2010. Thanks for the help dickhead.
@16 You don’t know what you’re talking about. The $322 million is store profit, not taxes and fees. They’re two different things. The $322 million of profits is on top of liquor taxes and fees. The $322 million is net profit after rent, wages, and other business expenses. It’s the money that goes into state coffers to support state programs. If you privatize the state liquor stores, you lose that profit, unless you replace it with $322 million of new taxes.
@17 I agree that expanded gambling, liquor sales, getting the state into the pot-peddling business, and promoting other “sin” activities (state-run whorehouses?) is the wrong way to raise revenue. For the good of society, we should outlaw gambling, reinstate prohibition, and triple the number of detectives assigned to drug enforcement. However, sin sells, and raising sin taxes is one of the few politically and economically feasible ways to increase state revenues during a recession.
Tell you what. I’m willing to include liquor stores in a tax reform deal. If Republicans will drop their opposition to a state income tax, I’ll support replacing the state sales tax, B & O tax, and state liquor stores with a flat-rate, revenue-neutral, state income tax. To keep it revenue-neutral, all you have to do is adjust the income tax rate to make up the loss of liquor store profits.
Well heck, if the state does so well selling booze, maybe the should open up other enterprises:
State Car Dealerships (only hybrids, of course)
State Grocery Stores (organic only)
State Pizza Parlor (with free daycare)
In fact, why even stop there? The state could get even MORE profit if they manufactured the beer and liquor and other products! Man this is really snowballing!!!
@19 “If you LEFTIST PINHEADED KLOWNS had your way, the STATE would be directly involved in providing ALL goods & services. What a Utopian Socialist Wonderland! Right?”
I take it, then, you’re against Alaska owning that state’s oil reserves and using the profits to (a) eliminate state taxes and (b) give money to state residents? Have you written to Gov. Palin to complain about the socialist scheme she’s running up there? Sell the oilfields to oil companies! Better yet, give the oilfields to Exxon and BP!! Support private enterprise!!! Alaskans should pay taxes like everyone else!!!
@20 I understand you’re in California at the moment. How’s your REPUBLICAN GOVERNOR there doing at balancing his budget?! Last I heard he had a $24 billion hole to plug.
Cynicalklown would have you believe there’s something unique about Gregoire’s budget shortfall. In fact, the BUSH DEPRESSION has put nearly every state government in the hole. This isn’t the fault of the governors at all. It’s the fault of the stupid Republican chimpanzees who trashed the national economy.
@24 The management of U.S. Airways tried to goose earnings by outsourcing maintenance to South America and one of their airplanes ended up in the drink. That aircraft had an engine problem only 2 days before the crash.
Also, I see in the news that U.S. Airways is offering an insulting $5,000 to each of the passengers. A lousy 5 grand for going through that trauma? They’ve gotta be kidding! Some of these people will suffer from PTSD, flashbacks, nightmares, and psychological disorders for the rest of their lives. The lawyers and process servers are already lining up.
@19 and 24
While I’m busy working harder and taking more risks, as a progressive, I expect the government to be protecting my back, so I can focus on my goals.
What good is working harder and taking more risks to get ahead, if circumstances out of your control, blind side and ruin you? For example: you get sick and die from tainted peanut butter allowed by lax government regulations. Your hard work and savings are negated by a banking collapse brought on by lax government regulations. You took risks and opened a profitable small business that is forced into bankruptcy because the bank won’t extend your line of credit because lax government regulations do not require the banks to use the bail out money to actually help business. While you are working hard at your small business, lax government regulations allowed the hill above your house to be logged recklessly and the resulting mudslide destroyed your house.
It takes 10,000 hours to become good at something. Most people cannot be food inspectors, banking experts, zoning planners, teachers, cops, firefighter, etc, etc, etc, AND still work on getting ahead.
That’s why I’m for more enforced regulations. So I can stop living in fear of everything like a republican. I want to live with a sense of assurance so I can go work harder and taking more risks knowing I have less of a chance of being wiped out.
@28 You got a choice: Socialized liquor sales or higher taxes. Which do you prefer? The last time Washington citizens voted on this question they overwhelmingly preferred keeping our socialist liquor stores.
Of course, it’s possible to go farther than state liquor stores. In Alaska, for example, they have socialized oilwells and pay no state taxes and get annual checks from the state. Governor Palin is the closest thing we have to a communist apparatchik in this country. I wonder how privatization would go over up there?
Then the very last thing you want to do is privatize it. Everyone with a shop would be doing his/her level best to maximize consumption, to maximize profits.
As a conservative capitalist, you shouldn’t care about the social costs, all that matters is the profits. Why the double standard, the hypocrisy?
Roger, I can’t tell if you are for or against the “socialized oil” in Alaska. Please confirm.
And to reply to the choice you gave, there is always an alternative to higher taxes: cutting spending. Maybe a hybrid approach could be used to ween WA State off of such programs
@36
Nolaguy, wow, you’re the only one who caught his deceptive comment.
You have earned the coveted “atta boy” from me.
Keep up the good work. You should feel honored I came down into the comment section and acknowledged you.
I work at the Liquor Board Distribution Center. After twenty years, I barely make over $16 per hour, which is at least 15% behind the private sector. Now granted my benefits are nominally better, but even these have been gutted since civil service deform. When adjusted for inflation of 2.8% per year, I am making less than ten years ago.
What has exploded is salaries at the top of the Liquor Board. Where I got raises of around 15% over a five or six year period, they found a way to raise the salaries of the people at the top as much as 30% to 50%, or even more. Many times they did this by specifically shitting on the lowest paid employees.
You want to look at a money pit, look no further than new “state of the art” distribution center. This is a huge money pit, where they consider it successful if we ship 95% of what the stores order. Before this new warehouse, we had almost a 100% fill rate. This conveyor system tears the hell out of the product, and damaged product is sky high. All this being said, we do a remarkable job making this rube goldberg monstrosity run. The liquor board gets it’s moneys worth from the lowest paid employees.
BTW, store clerks don’t get shit for wages. Sure it is better than Walmart, but that ain’t saying much.
If you really want to save money, look at the massive, fat layer of middle management that Gary Locke started and Gregoire allowed to continue. They don’t do shit except go to catered meetings.
@38
Someone should get a list of the 50 or so highest paying Liquor Board positions and salaries and publish it. It wouldn’t surprise me if all 50 were around 100K/yr.
Pelletizer@29:
Another stupid canard socialist argument from the king of leftist pinheads. Is crude oil a goods that a consumer can buy from a oil store? Is crude oil a service one can buy from the state?
Damn where is that crude oil store? The map sez eet’s right here. I jis can’t fin it.
Damn where is that crude oil service?
What a fool! What a moron!
Carl Grossman – Pelletizer needs another virtual oxygen bottle as his mind is a terrible thing!
Nolaguy@36:
Pelletizer was against “IF” once! He was having problems determining it’s meaning. Cranial infarction.
WA State Liquor Board posted salaries brought to you by Puddy…
Probably sumtin Pelletizer could do in his “old” age.
Idiot cynical says:
but what are the idiot republicans in congress doing?
Giving away money to the banks with no transparency or strings – just so the banks can…..lobby the government against hard-working unions. Talk about corruption. The banks can’t make l;oans but they can organize and give all their money to lobby.
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Share Print CommentsThree days after receiving $25 billion in federal bailout funds, Bank of America Corp. hosted a conference call with conservative activists and business officials to organize opposition to the U.S. labor community’s top legislative priority.
Link: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/.....61248.html
My tax money is going to buy lobbyists for an anti-labor push? When will the corruption stop? No wonder they aren’t lending money, they are buying lobbyists. Republican corruption knows no end…
@40: Maybe you better read your Marx again Puddy. Socialism is state control of the production and retail – not just retail. Alaska puts a huge tax on oil:
Of course Veco was the company that was involved with Ted Stevens, too. Fixing up his home and also with Ted Young. Ahh, Alaska, the great frontier….of corruption.
@19
Obviously a false statement by Cyn seeing how Democrats have had their way in Olympia for a very long time.
The first year of the Alaska dividend was in 1982. Palin’s been Governor for two of those years. Democrats have held the Alaskan Governorship for the majority of those years.
#44 sez:
Ummm where is the nearest retail store for crude oil? I want to buy some today. I got $50 to cover a barrel.
Where can I buy it in Alaska?
Yes, they tax the removal of oil from the ground.
Those are your blocked words!
@43
The big TARP 1.0 bailout was – generally speaking – supported by Democrats and opposed by Republicans. This is not a political statement; it’s a statement of historical fact.
The TARP bank bailout program failed to pass the first time due to opposition primarily by Republican Congressmen along with some brave Democrats (e.g. Cantwll, Marcy Kaptur, D – Toledo, OH). In the Senate, it was southern Republicans for the most part who led the fight against the TARP bank bailout. (The bailout passed the House the second time after serious arm-twisting by Hank Paulson and Ben Bernanke, which is another story.)
If you go back and look at the actual voting records, although it definitely wasn’t a party line vote, it was pretty clear that the Cogressional delegation from one party tended to favor it and the Congressional delegation from another party tended to be against it (and it wasn’t the way you might assume).
Tarp 2.0 will pass with most Democrasts voting YES and most Rebpubs voting NO.
@48 are you fucking just stupid or did your parents bring you up to lie?
GEORGE FUCKING BUSH instigated the TARP program and I just checked. HE’S A REPUBLICAN! Hello? Anyone home? Did your parents have children who lived?
@49
Did you know that bills cannot be passed without a vote in the house and senate?
A president could “instigate” the funding of research that creates a unicorn that shits skittles. But it won’t happen without a vote of the represenatives.
Are you saying that Bush just duped the house and senate into voting for Tarp 1.0?
You just keep telling yourself that:
Everything bad that has happened in the last 8 years came from one stupid man and a small band of his friends.
And more than 400 honest congressmen and 100 upright senators were fooled repeatedly by the arch-genius vice president behind the man who can not pronounce the word “nuclear”.
sheesh…
@50 your attempt to blame this on Democrats is just as smarmy as the party you’re trying to protect – the Republicans.
George Bush pushed that legislation – it’s a GOP bail out of the GOP elite and big GOP donors. Yes some Dems voted for it because the information they had from the GOP – controlled Treasury Dept said it was an emergency. GOP – led – GOP born and bred.
PERIOD.
Bush created the worst economy in our history. The GOP took the fall for it on Nov 4 and trying to re-write history now won’t do you or THEM any good. America has spoken. The GOP has been rejected!
If anyone is interested in the Yea/Nay for TARP 1.0, it’s right here:
http://www.govtrack.us/congres.....=h2008-101
In the senate, both dems and repubs share the blame pretty equally:
http://www.govtrack.us/congres.....=s2008-213
we get the goverment we deserve…
There aren’t many people who make over 100k at the Liquor Board. Where wages have exploded are WMS managers (or EMS directors) who were making 65K six or so year ago, who are now making 90K. They did this with what I call the “reclassification shuffle.” This is an old management trick among higher classifications and managers in the state. Their job remains basically the same, but they change the job title and give themselves a big pay raise in the process. DOP used to look the other way and rubber stamp this stuff because it only involved a relatively small number of employees. Whereas when my lower paying job class tries the same thing, they do everything in their power to deny honest reclassification (which should have happened when we moved into this high tech Distribution Center.)
The real problem with Civil Service Reform is they transferred hiring and promotion from the basically fair DOP to all the individual agencies. When this happened, the top layer of management damn well found a way to take care of themselves first. And worst of all, the reasons for civil service rules, rampant favoritism, cronyism and nepotism, wormed their way back into the employment process. Merit is the furthest thing from their mind now. It is like private industry run amok, where they find a way to reward friends and relatives first.
One of the worst things that happened recently with union employees is that the legal fees of grievances that go to arbitration are now split 50/50, no matter who is guilty. It used to be the winner paid the whole thing. Since the state has incredibly deep pockets, and the Attorney General on retainer, the result is Union staff members refusing to keep the underhanded crap under control. We have to fight like hell to get our stupid union staff to even file basic grievances.
If you want to see wages at state agencies, try this website:
http://www.lbloom.net/
Just look for the highest wages in the various agencies.
@52 So you went from your post in 48 trying to blame the Dems to saying that the Dems and GOP share the blame. At least you got closer to the truth. But you didn’t rebut – nor can you – the fact that it was President (R) George Bush who started it all – TARP was HIS idea.
byebye – look at the vote in the House.
Sorry to hijack this thread everyone. I’m done.