Rum Deal: America’s booze laws are terrible

http://www.slate.com/articles/business/moneybox/2014/06/america_s_booze_laws_worse_than_you_thought.html

by jseliger • 12 years ago

139 192 12 years ago

slate.com

mhurron• 12 years ago

I love Blue Laws and States that dictate what can be sold in State run liquor stores.

No no, really, I have exactly the same taste as some random guy in the state capital.

robflynn2• 12 years ago

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.

enjo• 12 years ago

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.

e40• 12 years ago

I felt like I was being punished for not being a church goer

That's exactly it, but it's a little odd the stores were open to tell you to come back in an hour.

bencollier49• 12 years ago

It made sense until he advocated home-distilling.

ceejayoz3• 12 years ago

What's wrong with that? I'd love to make some rum or whiskey at home.

sejje• 12 years ago

What's the problem with home-distilling?

tribaal• 12 years ago

Methanol.

gallerytungsten4• 12 years ago

Among other reasons, it's relatively easily to have a catastrophic fire. Unlike winemaking and brewing, where your end product will be in the range of 4% to 13% ABV, which generally won't burn, you can easily distill to 150 proof (75% ABV) with a simple pot still (or 190 proof with a column still).

150 proof is a highly flammable liquid. The vapor is flammable. If you have a vapor leak it can ignite. The flame is invisible. In other words, it's not something to take lightly.

In the micro distilling industry, I personally know of a half dozen fires over the past couple years. It's easy for something to go wrong very, very quickly.

Here is an article on the most recent fire: http://newsok.com/blast-rocks-moore-distillery/article/49079...

ctdonath2• 12 years ago

Not sure what the paranoia about home distilling stems from. Actually, I read most of article wondering when he would get to discussing the absurd home-distilling laws.

Making beer, wine, etc is legal in most jurisdictions (with some out-there upper limit like 200 gallons per person per year max). Nothing wrong with drinking [most of] that stuff; with a little practice you can make it better than the cheap store-bought forms (or maybe even get actually good at it).

Distilling is simply removing some of the content of the aforementioned beverage. Usually it involves extracting the [harmless] ethanol from the fermented must/wort via evaporation & condensation, which can be done as simply as a "disappearing still" (arrangements of common kitchen pots, ice, and stove). Legally, "distilling" also includes other forms of concentrating the alcohol by removing something, such as by freezing the liquid and draining the still-fluid components from the ice. Either way, it's pretty stupid that people can make vast amounts of inebriants at home for personal use, but are severely punished for concentrating it (again, for personal use).

Yes, some people do get stupid and make harmful solutions. A main factor therein is the fact that it's illegal to make distilled spirits without expensive licenses, which in turns make it hard for people to make it properly & safely (both in manufacturing and product). Sure you could argue that they shouldn't be doing illegal things, but that ignores the easy LEGAL availability (liquor stores flourish), and the fact that it's so easy to make at home it's almost hard not to.

jccooper3• 12 years ago

I think the paranoia is mostly due to the practice being so illegal for so long that nobody has any idea how it works or contact with it, and now assumes that there must be some good reason other than "we forgot to fix that after Prohibition".

And perhaps the authorities encourage this view to protect tax revenues (which are substantial.)

sophacles• 12 years ago

It's even worse than that... I live in Illinois, a state where there are not statewide quotas... however:

The cities have the ability to add extra licensure requirements, so quotas can and do exist at the city level. Further, there are strange rules about entry to taverns - for example age of entry need not be legal drinking age which differ by city. There are also city or even smaller administrative district rule over what can be sold, pricing rules (e.g. near the college campus there is a rule about the minimum price of a drink special that doesn't apply to a lot of other parts of town) and so on.

verboten3• 12 years ago

Regarding the age of entry, I recently walked past a bar in Chicago with a posted minimum age of 23. This struck me as odd (and somewhat offensive). I did a few searches, but had trouble locating any relevant information. Do you happen to know if the legislation provides insight into this sort of practice?

ceejayoz3• 12 years ago

That strikes me as illegal age discrimination...

kgermino2• 12 years ago

I know of quite a few places in Chicago with a mid-20's minimum age. To my knowledge it has nothing to do with any legal requirements but is based on the idea that slightly older people are less rowdy/better able to handle their drinks.

When I was 21/22 I rarely had a problem getting passed the bouncers in places with the higher age limits because "you don't look like you're going to do anything stupid"

sswezey• 12 years ago

It may be a college thing, they want to prevent college students and/or handed-down fake IDs from college students.

lvh• 12 years ago

As a (western) European, these laws strike me as completely unnecessary and obviously damaging. The union's ad (page 2) makes no sense at all. Kids here aren't dying by the bunch, and I'm pretty sure I can buy all kinds of booze (from mixed fizzy drinks to beer and wine to hard liquor to everclear) in any arbitrary convenience store...

endersshadow4• 12 years ago

Sigh.

Yes, yes, we know. All of the laws, customs, and cultural traditions in western Europe are much more rational/intelligent/better/whatever than those in America.

The real story, as usual, turns out to be fairly complex. Americans have a very odd and unique history with alcohol. Most notably was the temperance movement [1], which really started all of this hullabaloo. This caused an amendment to our Constitution...something tough to do and even tougher to undo. And yet, eleven years later, it was repealed (thankfully).

But, and here's the big but: To temper the temperance movement (which, by the way, had proven considerable political power), there were these crazy laws that were enacted to limit alcohol buying. The predecessor to the ATF was born [2]. And things like the 3-tier system were created, along with all sorts of bans on homebrewing and whatnot.

Essentially all of the regulations on alcohol have their roots in either the temperance movement or the anti-drunk driving movement (i.e.-MADD), which is a neo-temperance movement. Most of them were political concessions. Anymore, folks have profited tremendously off of artificial supply limitations, and they seek to keep those limitations in place by lobbying (quite effectively) against repeal or reform.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Temperance_movement_in_the_Uni...

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bureau_of_Alcohol,_Tobacco,_Fi...

wdewind3• 12 years ago

None of which detracts from his point: we (Americans) are nuts about mind altering drugs, and most of the debate on both sides is laughably sophomoric. Europeans have a lot to feel superior about when it comes to these regulations. That there is a complex political history here doesn't alter that.

Spooky23• 12 years ago

Actually the root issue there predates temperance by a wide margin. The US governments primary revenue sources in the early days were tariffs and excise taxes, particularly taxes on alcohol.

Alcohol is a great commodity to tax because stills require lots of sugar, grain and barrels and thus are/were very easy to spot. Even today, the ATF will drop by for a visit if you're purchasing large quantities of sugar, and you'll have a hard time buying lots of sugar without identifying yourself.

Many states followed a similar model, so there is a historically ancient precedent of such regulation. Temperance and post-prohibition regulation added more layers.

dalke4• 12 years ago

Sigh. Yes, yes, we know the US is special. So is everyone else. ;)

The temperance movement was not restricted to the US. The Swedish temperance movement started in the early 1800s, and gained a lot of strength with the starting of IOGT in the 1880s. This latter growth was strongly influenced by the Good Templar movement in the US and Canada. The peak was likely the Swedish prohibition referendum in 1922, where 51% of the voters voted against prohibition. (There have only been six referendums; others include "join the EU?" and "adopt the Euro?")

Instead, Sweden moved to a quota system - the Bratt system - first for hard alcohol and then for all the lowest alcohol drinks. While the quota system disappeared in the mid-1950s, the government still has a monopoly, excepting through bars and restaurants.

While on the other hand, Iceland had prohibition from 1915 until (in some form or other) 1989. That ending is still celebrated as "Beer Day", because until then the Icelandic temperance movement had successfully argued that strong beer, being cheaper than hard liquor or wine, would cause more depravity so should not be sold. People ended up mixing legal, weak beer with hard liquor to make an ersatz strong beer. Prohibition of that mix finally tilted the scales to end prohibition.

Norway had prohibition from 1916 to 1927, again, from the same temperance movement that was strong in the US.

jpatokal• 12 years ago

There are plenty of western European states with very similar laws. For example, all the Scandinavian states have varying levels of government monopolies for the distribution of harder liquor, which in Sweden translates to "anything more than 3.5% ABV".

Not that this makes any more sense in Europe though. In Finland, it's a national pastime to make booze runs across to Estonia, where alcohol is far cheaper. Since both countries are in the EU, there's very little Finland can do about it (free trade and all that), and there's even judicial precedent that importing a minivan stacked full of vodka falls under "personal use" if you happen to have a wedding or birthday party coming up.

litek• 12 years ago

Denmark is the notable exception. You can buy hard liquor at the local 7-eleven at any hour.

sliverstorm• 12 years ago

Well, it's presumably what the people of those states want.

I'm a bit of a federalist (at least for now). I live in a state whose liquor laws I generally like, and if other states want different liquor laws that is their prerogative.

twic3• 12 years ago

Okay, what the heck is with this business of secondary markets for licenses in the US? You can sell a liquor license? You can sell a taxi license (aka medallion)? Why? How does treating licenses as property make any legal sense, or serve any public good?

In the UK, if you want to sell booze from your shop, you write to the council and apply for a license. They check you and your shop out, and if you seem okay, they grant it. If you want to drive a taxi around your town, you write to the council and apply for a license. They check you and your car out, and if you seem okay, they grant it. This seems really simple and, frankly, natural. It's how all sorts of licenses work in the private sector too - think about copyright licenses, tenancies, etc. How on earth do you get from there to licenses being a kind of property?

jstalin• 12 years ago

Here's a decent history on why the US liquor laws are the way they are: http://reason.com/archives/2014/06/04/how-not-to-legalize-a-...

These licensing schemes have become nothing more than rent-seeking by those established with existing licenses.

dublinben4• 12 years ago

Licenses become valuable property when they become scarce. In every US municipality I'm aware of, the supply for both liquor licenses and Taxi medallions is tightly restricted. When you simply cannot get a new license by applying to the appropriate authority, it begins to make sense to pay tens of thousands of dollars to adopt an existing license.

gress4• 12 years ago

That only answers why they are valuable, not why they are property. It is the issuing authority that intentional makes licenses into property by honoring them after they have been transferred.

The quesion is, why are these licenses honored after a transfer?

Permit• 12 years ago

I think the parent was asking why the licenses were transferable. I can't sell my driver's license to an aspiring driver, why should I be able to sell a taxi license or a liquor license?

logfromblammo2• 12 years ago

It doesn't serve a public good. It raises prices by limiting supply. It is almost pure protectionism, to eliminate competition.

Impose an artificial barrier to entry, and everyone already past the barrier can work a little less, and reap higher profits.

Ensuring safety and quality of service is merely a pretext, and mostly everyone knows that is just political flimflam. It is a corrupt practice that is tolerated because it seems to benefit businesses somewhat more than it hurts customers.

In some cases, they are NOT property. They are treated as such to move the cash around, but the person exercising the privilege sets up a sham business arrangement with the licensee. For instance, the licensee of the cab medallion "hires" a manager with his own metered vehicle, garage, and roster of drivers, has no involvement in the day-to-day operations, and just cashes the checks.

eli• 12 years ago

It's hard to make blanket statements about the US, it varies quite a bit by state, county, and municipality (that's part of the point.)

Around me, the process is (theoretically) similar to how you describe: you make an application to a local body of elected officials, there's a hearing, and they deny or approve it. Neighbors have an opportunity to object or seek concessions. And I don't think you can really sell a license.

rayiner• 12 years ago

You make a license trade-able when you care about limiting the supply, but you don't care who gets it. The purpose of a taxi medallion is to limit the total number of taxis, and the purpose of a liquor license is to limit the number of establishments that sell liquor.[1] But the government doesn't care who has the license. Making it trade-able ensures that the license goes to the person or organization that values it most highly (Coase Theorem: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coase_theorem).

[1] These purposes aren't, on their face, unreasonable. Taxis generate undesirable congestion, and establishments that serve liquor tend to create undesirable drunk people. If you don't believe me, take a walk through Wrigleyville in Chicago on a Friday night, where you can see an endless parade of taxis picking up an endless parade of drunk students.

chimeracoder2• 12 years ago

These purposes aren't, on their face, unreasonable. Taxis generate undesirable congestion, and establishments that serve liquor tend to create undesirable drunk people. If you don't believe me, take a walk through Wrigleyville in Chicago on a Friday night, where you can see an endless parade of taxis picking up an endless parade of drunk students.

I agree that sometimes this setup (licenses to restrict supply) make sense, but taxis are not a good example of where this provides a net benefit.

I'd rather have a bunch of taxis than a bunch of drunk college students driving. Furthermore, from a city planning perspective the most efficient use of both road space and real estate (parking) is to have cheap, on-demand taxis instead of personal car ownership. If public transportation is fairly extensive and always available (as it is in NYC), it makes sense to eschew personal ownership of cars and use taxis for the rare case when public transportation isn't enough.

Overall, this reduces congestion, and is one of the reason that taxis are oftentimes taxed less (or pay less in tolls) than personal, non-commercial vehicles.

In fact, I posit that a significant reason that services like Hailo and Uber exist in NYC specifically is that the supply of on-demand taxis is heavily restricted[0]. If the supply were left up to the free market[1], Uber and Hailo would be able to provide some added value (the convenience of the mobile app and the "premium" feel), but not the level that they are now.

[0] Since the 1970s, the number of medallions available has not increased commensurately with the increase in population

[1] but with the same laws regarding nondiscrimination of service with respect to destination, credit cards, etc.

typicalrunt• 12 years ago

take a walk through Wrigleyville in Chicago on a Friday night, where you can see an endless parade of taxis picking up an endless parade of drunk students.

But isn't this supply meeting demand? If there were too many taxis, wouldn't the supply eventually cull itself when nobody can make enough money?

avn21092• 12 years ago

> "Taxis generate undesirable congestion..."

Jane Jacobs rolls in her grave when you say stuff like that. The overwhelming majority of transportation engineers will tell you that taxis alleviate congestion by raising asset utilization. And they also reduce the need for vast parking facilities and block-circling in search of parking (which turns out to be a large fraction of traffic in some areas). It's a triple-win.

notahacker2• 12 years ago

Arguably the state should care about who gets the licenses, but even if it didn't, the state can easily ensure that licenses go to the people or organizations that value them most by auctioning them on an annual basis (and offering incumbent licence-holders first option to renew the licence at the market determined lease rates) whilst collecting the licenses' appreciation in value

ejain• 12 years ago

Regarding the "undesirable drunk people", aren't there other laws (e.g. zoning laws) that deal with that?

stonemetal2• 12 years ago

How on earth do you get from there to licenses being a kind of property?

How on earth do you prevent it? You need to provide stable access to licenses, so that if Joe drives a cab he doesn't end up jobless next year because he lost the taxi license lotto. Suddenly Joe has something he can sell, access to his license. Say we tie the license to the person driving the cab then Lucky cabs can't fire a bad driver because then they lose a license.

bane5• 12 years ago

You issue as many licenses as their are passing applicants.

notahacker2• 12 years ago

Making licenses tradable really doesn't affect the stability of access to licenses or facility to fire drivers in the slightest. You tie the licences to whoever pays for them, and give that entity - firm or individual - grandfather rights to the same number of taxi licences as last year. Sure, if the licences are paid for and renewed by the firms it makes individual drivers dispensable and at risk of unemployment if the taxi firm wants cheaper labour, and if they're paid for and renewed by particular drivers it disincentivises firms from firing then for underperformance; allowing the "owners" of the medallion to collect large amounts of economic rent on a secondary market doesn't change that at all assuming the total number of licenses is still fixed at the same amount.

If anything, arguably it's worse for Joe if Lucky Cabs owns his medallion and also has the opportunity to sell at a profit, and Lucky Cabs are similarly badly off if their drivers own the medallions but don't particularly care for keeping customers happy (perhaps because they're counting down the years til they can sell the medallion on for an order of magnitude more than they originally paid for it).

If you want to encourage flexibility in licenses which are short term leased rather than "owned" you can even give holders the option of pro rata rebates (at the price paid) for trading them in early to encourage people that aren't using their licence to return them.

Basically, the city is in total control of the terms on which medallions can be leased and can collect the full market value of the medallions itself; to not do so is economically indefensible, unless you think giving cash windfalls to its original taxi drivers and speculators is high on the list of civic priorities

danudey5• 12 years ago

In Vancouver, you have a license for a cab (not a driver), and you can put any qualifying driver in that cab. Fire a driver, get a new one, you can still have a cab on the road, but they're not transferable (and they're limited in quantity).

That said, Vancouver's taxi system is a little wonky, though possibly not atypical; there are usually three parties involved: the driver, the person who owns the vehicle, and the person who owns the license (i.e. the cab company), and drivers who don't own their own vehicle typically have to split their profits three ways. More commonly, you pay X dollars per night (split among the two others) and then hope that you make enough fares to make a profit.

Which you usually do, of course. Part of the reason is because the city limits the number of licenses that can be issued; the other part is by crushing competition like Uber under old, outdated laws and regulations (in BC, Uber's black car service falls under the criteria of 'limo', and limos have a minimum charge of ~$65). Which kind of makes sense; if Uber started killing the cab companies, it would be the drivers who would suffer first, and not the companies themselves.

chrisdevereux• 12 years ago

If nothing else, why not make the licenses non-transferrable and auction the available licenses?

Seems like they're missing out on an easy source of income by letting third parties benefit from the restricted supply.

pbhjpbhj3• 12 years ago

Presumably the answer is corrupt officials? That seems to be the only thing that makes sense - they don't want the State to make the money they want their friends to make it and, of course, share it with them??

orp• 12 years ago

Fun fact about the UK. In order to get a license to drive a taxi in London, applicants need to pass an extensive test. Passing the test takes years of preparation and multiple attempts.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taxicabs_of_the_United_Kingdom#...

dublinben4• 12 years ago

I bet you could write a bot that pastes that link any time a comment mentions UK and taxis in proximity.

rhizome• 12 years ago

There's a documentary about that called "The Knowledge:"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NYZcG2mY9Fs

mabhatter3• 12 years ago

You still write the council and get permission.. You just have yo "buy your place in line" from somebody that already has one.

the_watcher• 12 years ago

I don't have a problem with secondary markets (such as the iPhone secondary market that pops up around all new model releases, based on the private manufacturer making the decision to limit supply), but when it's enabled by regulations and is a product of regulatory capture, there is essentially no justification for it in my book.

gadders2• 12 years ago

I remember trying to buy more than two 40oz bottles of malt liquor when I was in the USA. It made me laugh as it's only about as strong as Carlsberg Special Brew, and my Nan drinks that.

HeyLaughingBoy• 12 years ago

So...

Are you saying you weren't allowed to? If so, why not? You can walk into any random liquor store that I'm aware of and buy gallons of beer or hard liquor if you want to

gadders2• 12 years ago

I was not allowed to buy more than two. This would have been in either Jersey, Maryland, Delaware or Pennsylvania. I am going back 20 years or so.

jal2783• 12 years ago

The piece provides several examples of regulatory capture [1], where concentrated efforts by private interests overcome diffuse interests of the public for their own profit.

The problem is that while a private interest group can focus all their efforts on one issue, the public has many diverse interests and has to be on guard against all the possible private interest groups at all times.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regulatory_capture

endersshadow4• 12 years ago

I wonder what could be done to help fight this. Not just for alcohol, but regulatory capture in general. Network neutrality is in the same boat. Other than having a generic consumer advocate lobbying group, what could be done?

dublinben4• 12 years ago

Get the government out of these areas. You can't have regulatory capture without government regulation.

curun1r• 12 years ago

Fix campaign financing laws to limit the power of money in politics. The only reason the politicians listen to the impassioned few over the apathetic many is because the impassioned few are willing to supply the money needed to get reelected. Fix that, and politicians will start representing the interests of the broadest swathe of the electorate or, gasp, voting with their conscience based on what seems like the right thing to do.

Sadly, we seem to be going the opposite direction on this at the moment.

enraged_camel• 12 years ago

Create oversight bodies consisting of untouchables.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Untouchables_(law_enforcement)

edit: why the downvote?

lucisferre2• 12 years ago

You should try Canada's laws for a while. Some of the highest taxes on alcohol in the world, almost no province allows drinking outside homes or licensed establishments (so be prepared for a $300+ fine for having wine at a picnic). All of this managed through archaic licensing systems run by bureaucratic power-tripping morons.

Pxtl3• 12 years ago

Ontario takes it one step further, even. We have a government run monopoly on liquor and wine sales (the LCBO) and a non-government-run government-protected monopoly on beer sales (the Beer Store).

To make that clear: the only company that is allowed to run a beer store in Ontario is The Beer Store. The Beer Store is owned by an association of InBev (Belgian company) and Molson/Coors (headquarters in Denver).

So Ontario has a government-protected beer retail monopoly that isn't even run by Canadians.

We just had an election. The Beer Store issue was completely ignored by all major parties.

k-mcgrady• 12 years ago

This was one of the strangest things for me when I lived in Toronto. For some reason I always thought Canada was quite liberal with alcohol. LCBO stores were few and far between too. It was about a 30-40 min walk to my nearest one. Back in Ireland I can hit about 10 stores selling beer and liquor in that time! And there are a lot fewer drunks on the street.

Bluestrike2• 12 years ago

We have the same painful system here in Pennsylvania with wine and spirits. Everything is through state stores, and we can't even avail ourselves of direct shipping (unless it's direct to the state store :O). It makes finding less common items so very difficult and time-consuming.

One might conclude that beer would be easier to purchase. No go. If you want to buy a bottle of beer or a six-pack, you have to go to a bar or restaurant where they can sell you up to 192 ounces of beer. Anything over that, and you have to go to a beer distributor instead where you can only buy beer by the case or by the keg (still no wine or liquor). Some grocery stores have gotten smart, and have setup little cafes that are separated from the main stores. Adding a table or two, and some gas station microwave sandwiches is apparently enough to do squeak by and sell beer as a restaurant.

Naturally, no one particularly likes our system. But everyone has a vested interest. Gas stations want to sell beer (a regional chain, Sheetz, has been lobbying for changes for a few years now), but can't. Restaurants and bars don't want to lose their current monopoly on low-volume sales. Distributors fear a future where six-packs are more convenient, lest customers buy six-packs rather than a case with more beer than they want at a given time. And state store employees have been going deathly insane for years over the possibility of liquor store privatization, a separate reform that's often brought up alongside the others.

Together, these groups are amongst the most influential in the state and they're not afraid to use that influence to fight reform efforts. Simply put, it's a mess. Until I read your comments about the Beer Store's rather interesting ownership, I honestly couldn't imagine how much more fucked up things could be. Ridiculous.

randomdata• 12 years ago

To make that clear: the only company that is allowed to run a beer store in Ontario is The Beer Store.

For what it is worth, it is possible to become a Beer Store and LCBO franchise as a private business in (rural) Ontario.

yesbabyyes• 12 years ago

In Sweden, we have a state monopoly on all alcoholic beverages, except for bars and restaurants. We have very high taxes on liquor, not so much on beer and wine. The monopoly is called Systembolaget (The System Company). They are among the biggest buyers of alcoholic beverages in the world, and they have a mean assortment.

Private import is regulated, but it's way more relaxed within the EU countries. Systembolaget will (must) import anything you want which they don't carry, and the process is generally very convenient.

While Swedes love bashing "Bolaget", I think a lot of people are quite satisfied - the opening hours are a little cumbersome (closing at 6-8 PM on weekdays, 3 PM Saturdays, closed on Sundays) but IMO that's counterbalanced by the great assortment.

We used to have a monopoly on the production of liquor as well. It was called Vin & Sprit (Wine & Spirits) and was the company who created Absolut Vodka. Absolut sold very well and they couldn't leave a profit (or something like that). They put all profits into advertising instead, making Absolut a very well known brand. The sitting administration recently sold the company to Pernod Ricard.

baddox9• 12 years ago

a non-government-run government-protected monopoly

Isn't that a bit of a tricky semantic construction? If the government gets to decide who is able to offer a good in a particular industry, then the government is essentially controlling that industry, with one thin layer of indirection.

ThomPete• 12 years ago

Why not try laws from countries that aren't worse.

Some European countries have a fairly sensible approach.

lucisferre2• 12 years ago

Sorry, my comment was intended to be fatuous. I would much prefer the laws most European countries have.

rdmcfee2• 12 years ago

Only this year did BC announce they would remove legislation which outlawed having happy hour specials.

baddox9• 12 years ago

What's so good about that? That sounds approximately as bad as the situation in the US as described in this article.

boobsbr3• 12 years ago

it's sarcasm.

rdmcfee2• 12 years ago

In addition to having similar liquor license quotas, British Columbians pay a markup of 123% for wine and 170% for spirits. Our provincial liquor board generates $1.2B per year from a population of only 4.5 million people. There are different dynamics here as we have public health insurance. Liquor and tobacco sin taxes are a form of pre-payment on future healthcare expenses of heavy consumers.

MAGZine• 12 years ago

Although it's all just silly because in BC you still pay for health insurance anyhow through MSP.

BC should really take a note from Saskatchewan or Alberta. Paying for health coverage in this country is an atrocity, especially with the high liquor/tabacco taxes.

chiph• 12 years ago

The SC mini-bottle law has an interesting history. It was originally promoted by the Baptists to prevent alcoholism by limiting how much you could get in your glass (open-pour became illegal) The waiter or bartender had to crack the seal on the mini-bottle in front of you and pour the entire contents into your glass. No more, no less.

This quirk in the law caused an unintended side-effect. Mixed drinks became very popular because now your Manhattan had quite a bit of alcohol in it -- a full mini bottle each of whiskey and vermouth.

boobsbr3• 12 years ago

to prevent alcoholism by limiting how much you could get in your glass

because people couldn't possibly concieve the idea of drinking more than one mini bottle... /s

I really can't understand this kind of thought process.

IvyMike• 12 years ago

Philip K. Howard has a new book out: The Rule of Nobody. (Note: I haven't read it, I've just seen a few interviews and considered buying the book.)

The premise is that the fact that laws are constantly added but almost never removed is crippling us. Also, unfair laws are almost always unfair in someone's favor, and the groups benefiting will defend those unfair laws tooth-and-nail, and the morass of laws becomes even more stagnant.

I think Howard is usually seen as conservative, because he's seen as anti-regulation. I tend to think he's anti-stupid-regulation, which is a subtle but important difference. But even if you disagree with Howard in broad strokes, you have to admit that the alcohol laws in this country are pretty good supporting evidence for his premise.

dangoldin• 12 years ago

Based on your description this seems very similar to Mancur Olson's "The Rise and Decline of Nations" - he provides an economic framework to think about special interest groups and why they tend to win out in terms of politics.

cobrausn• 12 years ago

A longtime wish of mine is that every law ever written came up for review every decade or so, providing ample opportunity to adjust and remove laws to fit changing cultural norms. There is probably a downside to this that I'm not seeing, not being a lawyer and all that.

hibikir• 12 years ago

There are quite a few downsides.

The first problem is that now you have to dedicate a whole lot of work to maintenance. Even if this was done in good faith, you'd have millions spent just reading and rubber stamping laws. Legislatures get little done as it is to add more work.

Then, we have the problem of getting the legislature to take this seriously. What stops gigantic omnibus renewals that, for all intents and purposes, lead to the same thing that we have now?

There's also the risks to partisan fighting over controversial laws. Imagine what happens to an impasse over immigration law, or gun control. The winner, politically, would always be the side that would be more capable of tolerating no law at all. This is far more politically charged than just keeping whatever was the consensus in the past.

So that proposal is only a good idea if you believe that having a harder to govern country is something you want. Rarely a popular opinion among people that make laws.

warble2• 12 years ago

As an engineer, I build a test for every design I put forth. The test validates the design against the intent of the design. You could approach law this way.

In other words, every law has an intent. Make it so before any law can be passed, you must design a test to validate the law against the intent to be run at some point in the future. Then if the test fails outright, or begins to fail over time (some laws work at first, but fail later) then you pull the law out of the books.

I know this is very naive, and over-simplified. But I like the idea.

philwelch2• 12 years ago

Passing a law in the first place takes political momentum, but renewing it is cheap. The Patriot Act keeps getting renewed even a decade after the moment of poor judgment that saw it passed.

rtpg• 12 years ago

a lot of laws actually work like this (see the George Bush tax cuts and Patriot act renewals).

It does allow for fresh debate on things but can also cause a lot of friction and uncertainty.

sscalia• 12 years ago

This article doesn't even bring up ABC (alcohol boards) who's sole purpose is to waste taxpayer money on sting operations at bars and push for esoteric laws that make it harder and harder to get a drink.

Make no mistake -- alcohol boards and organizations like MADD are simply neo-prohibiitonist movements co-opted by religious zealots.

LancerSykera• 12 years ago

"It is still more revolting if the grounds upon which it was laid down have vanished long since"

I'm surprised that the author, being a current Pennsylvanian, didn't mention the Johnstown Flood Tax. Despite that particular flood having occurred all the way back in 1936, we're still paying the tax on liquor.

clarkmoody• 12 years ago

If it's legal to build a firearm [1] for personal use, then it should probably be legal to distill spirits at home [2], though I don't advocate doing both at the same time!

[1] https://www.atf.gov/firearms/faq/firearms-technology.html#co...

[2] http://www.ttb.gov/faqs/genalcohol.shtml

danbmil99• 12 years ago

Same arguments can be used against rent control. In NYC, loft leases in newly trendy nabes can garner up to $5M in "key money". The rent regs are nearly impossible to phase out, because both landlords and some renters benefit by them, though arguably they hurt the market as a whole and are patently unfair to first-time residents.

Regulation of commerce always risks unintended (though often forseeable) consequences.

Shivetya• 12 years ago

Liquor laws.... cigarette laws (who can sell/etc.... and even auto sales.

Heavily regulated industries abound, those are three very big ones whose taxes fund a lot of services but more importantly whose political donations fund even more protection.

In Georgia there was a big stink about restaurants storing customer alcohol, seems the locals took offense and were confiscating private alcohol because of lack of tax stamps.

If people ever thought there were not enough taxes they never bothered to add them all up. Even taxes, fees, and whatnot, that do not hit you directly get you in the end

ljf• 12 years ago

For a capitalist and (relative to most of Western Europe) a centre/right country, the US sure has a lot of anti-business laws.

jqm• 12 years ago

"Some argue that home distilling is more dangerous than home brewing, but I don’t buy that."

I buy it. In fact, I'm pretty certain of it.

But otherwise, good article. I'm continually frustrated when I try to buy beer on Sunday and they don't allow Sunday sales in my town. Of course, the two stores directly outside the city limits do pretty well from the law but I don't know that it accomplishes much else. Except maybe promoting drunk driving.

Rum Deal: America’s booze laws are terrible

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