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Rum Deal: America’s booze laws are terrible

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Re: Rum Deal: America’s booze laws are terrible

#51

Post by bane »

stonemetal wrote: post #49
twic wrote: post #10

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 g…

> 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 becaus…

You issue as many licenses as their are passing applicants.

Re: Rum Deal: America’s booze laws are terrible

#52

Post by chrisdevereux »

twic wrote: post #10

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 g…

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.

Re: Rum Deal: America’s booze laws are terrible

#53

Post by [deleted] »

jal278 wrote: post #15

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/w…

[deleted]

Re: Rum Deal: America’s booze laws are terrible

#54

Post by gshubert17 »

Spooky23 wrote: post #36
endersshadow wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.…

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…

And a major challenge to alcohol taxes as a revenue source was the Whiskey Rebellion [0]

[0] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whiskey_Rebellion

Re: Rum Deal: America’s booze laws are terrible

#55

Post by Bluestrike2 »

Pxtl wrote: post #31
lucisferre wrote: post #24

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.

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 Onta…

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.

Re: Rum Deal: America’s booze laws are terrible

#56

Post by dalke »

endersshadow wrote: post #20
lvh wrote: post #7

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...

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.…

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.

Re: Rum Deal: America’s booze laws are terrible

#57

Post by robflynn »

readstoomuch wrote: post #41
e40 wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

In the UK, a common loophole for extending "Sunday trading" laws is that, while they can't exchange money for goods, they can let you in the store and collect the things you want to buy so you'll be ready for "opening" and can go straight to checkout.

That was partially it. The other part was the stores that were open during the prohibited times usually sold allowed items also (medicine, food, diapers, etc.)

As far as I know, the law has been repealed. Before I moved away I saw them implement Sunday beer and wine sales (still no sunday liquor sales) and do not remember having difficulty buying the previously restricted items on Sunday.

It was weird entering a Wal-Mart (or other large store) and seeing a large section of items roped off.

Re: Rum Deal: America’s booze laws are terrible

#58

Post by Pxtl »

k-mcgrady wrote: post #43
Pxtl wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 Onta…

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.

Our liquor laws only look liberal because we're compared American absurdities like their 21-year drinking age and the the "no alcohol sales on Sunday" present in many states.

Re: Rum Deal: America’s booze laws are terrible

#59

Post by IvyMike »

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.

Re: Rum Deal: America’s booze laws are terrible

#60

Post by wtbob »

gallerytungsten wrote: post #33
sejje wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's the problem with home-distilling?

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 inv…

Yeah, catastrophic fires are an issue. And yet we've no problem with home storage of gasoline for lawn mowers (and yes, we don't typically collect gasoline in gaseous form over heat sources).

Catastrophic fires are also an issue with deep-frying turkeys, and in fact with deep-frying anything.

And we do already have a well-formed body of law dealing with responsibility for fires, damage to neighbour's homes &c.

'Someone might maybe do something wrong' isn't really a good reason for there to be a federal ban on most behaviours. I'd be much less incensed were it at the city or even neighbourhood level.

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