California lifts restrictions allowing restaurants to sell alcohol to-go

https://www.sfexaminer.com/news/california-lifts-restrictions-allowing-restaurants-to-sell-alcohol-to-go/

by MilnerRoute • 6 years ago

45 17 6 years ago

sfexaminer.com

leetrout• 6 years ago

Good. Anecdata was that more than a few had already been doing this in lock down locations.

sneak4• 6 years ago

https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2020/03/coronavirus-tsa-...

A lot of things that we took as immutable facts of life in the US are actually arbitrary and unnecessary restrictions on free movement or trade that are designed to force you to pay for things unnecessarily or destroy free markets and unfairly protect incumbents/institutions.

Example: I’m low on contact lenses. Without being able to see, I can’t work.

In the US, contact lenses are for sale by prescription only(!). I had my office ship a few boxes I had left over in Germany, as it is both impossible to go to Germany as well as impossible to safely visit the local office in the US to which one must pay $150 to get the piece of paper to be allowed to purchase what is an uncontrolled item in almost every other country in the world.

FedEx has blocked the shipment, demanding a prescription, which does not exist.

Who is this benefitting? Who is being protected from which harms by these laws?

I don’t even drink alcohol and I think that liquor sales licensing is insane, especially when coupled with the OUTRAGEOUS list of additional restrictions they are allowed to place on businesses just because they serve alcohol some of the time (the restrictions the state gets to apply to the biz are 24/7). jwz’s extensive documentation on the CA ABC’s tyranny is an especially good example.

9HZZRfNlpR• 6 years ago

Its protecting the upper middle class medical workers who look after themselves and create monopolies and restrictions.

amvalo• 6 years ago

Until recently there were sites selling contact lenses (like visiondirect.co.uk) that would flaunt this rule, but visiondirect was recently being investigated for it so YMMV.

throwaway86fb6• 6 years ago

In the US, you can order contact lenses online from the UK without a prescription. lenstore.co.uk is one of many websites that will ship to the US.

sneak4• 6 years ago

Thanks for the tip. I've considered the original shipment of 200EUR (plus 60EUR shipping) a loss, and I've just ordered another 150GBP of lenses; with any luck those will reach me within a month. This whole mess is so unbelievably wasteful.

If they're not going to do away with them entirely, laws and regulations should have a "suspend_in_disaster" flag when passed, the same way they have giant carve-outs for bans of things for human beings that don't apply at all to the police.

wdb• 6 years ago

You don't have spare glasses?

Symbiote• 6 years ago

Can you send someone else's prescription? I assume they don't check the strength actually matches.

sneak4• 6 years ago

I am happy to spend up to probably $100k as necessary to avoid committing papertrailed violations of federal laws. I've seen far too many people go to the torture section of jail in the US due to overzealous prosecution of utterly ridiculous laws. The DoJ scares the fuck out of me.

spicymaki2• 6 years ago

You are benefiting!

Yes, contact lenses are medical devices that needs to be regulated. Imagine if you bought contacts from Amazon, received a counterfeit batch, and it wrecked your vision? Who could you even sue?

These laws protect you the consumer. I am sorry you are inconvenienced.

Alcohol abuse is the third largest preventable cause of death in the US and the death rate has doubled in the last 20 years. Kills on average 88,000 people per year in the US. Liquor licensing is one of the few tools we have to protect us.

We need to sober up.

sneak4• 6 years ago

Imagine if you bought contacts from Amazon, received a counterfeit batch, and it wrecked your vision? Who could you even sue?

The same entity I would sue if I was damaged by any other product that was unfit for purpose: the dealer and/or manufacturer who sold the faulty goods.

Your argument doesn't really hold up with that example.

Alcohol abuse, drunk driving aside, doesn't directly physically harm anyone who doesn't fully consent to the effects of alcohol in their body. You're fine to believe that people shouldn't drink, or shouldn't drink as much as they do: I even agree with you.

You're not fine to think that people should use the threat of violence (police/regulation enforcement) against people who would peacefully sell alcohol to consenting adults who wish to buy it.

egberts12• 6 years ago

But must order food with the booze to go.

ultrarunner• 6 years ago

Is there any official stated reasoning for this? At least some feign that it makes the sale safer in some way?

smelendez• 6 years ago

It boosts the price to make it more likely that hardcore drinkers will go elsewhere, protecting people who want restaurants but not liquor stores in their neighborhoods.

Also, in this case, bars are closed including for to go orders but restaurants are allowed to sell to go, so that people will not hang out in or around bars and spread the virus. Drinkers are less likely to hang out around restaurants buying beer all day to sneak around the corner if each beer comes with a California-priced sandwich.

chrismcb• 6 years ago

I never understood the reasoning behind not allowing togo alcohol from a far food place. I can always walk next door to the convenience store and buy a can. So why can't the restaurant sell it?

spicymaki2• 6 years ago

Restaurants are supposed to monitor patrons level of alcohol consumption. Otherwise they can be held liable for damages resulting in accidents related to DUIs or can potentially lose their liquor license. Alcohol to go totally breaks that system. They also can’t monitor who gets the alcohol (are they of legal age? over the legal limit? etc.)

Most areas in the US ban public consumption if alcohol. The bottles cannot even be displayed in the open. Putting alcohol in an unmarked to go container would circumvent the law as well.

California lifts restrictions allowing restaurants to sell alcohol to-go

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