61–70 of 199 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
That strikes me as illegal age discrimination...
I am pretty sure age is only a protected class over fifty-five (somewhere around there). People can legally discriminate against young people.
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…
For what it is worth, it is possible to become a Beer Store and LCBO franchise as a private business in (rural) Ontario.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Aren't your last two points contradictory?
No, there's a difference between substantive review of applications with availability and queue management (and responding to inquiries) about applications pending availability.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
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?
EDIT:
Perhaps of interest, I went to Prince Edward Island last year and met some fishermen. Apparently their licenses can be sold (they effectively take out a mortgage given the cost) and are used as a sort of retirement plan by the fishermen that own them. But they also (according to them so I'm not sure the precise legal considerations or if it's convention) require that you spend some years working for licensed fishermen before you can purchase one. So sort of a hybrid between the driver's license and the taxi medallion model.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
There's lots of good in the European approach to alcohol. It's not unusual to sit down with a glass of wine with lunch in Italy, but in the U.S. you might get flagged as an alcoholic. Children grow up learning how to manage alcohol better when they're adults and you don't see much binge drinking and rates of drunk driving are far lower. Then again, even the Irish are getting irritated with the Brits coming over to Du…
Stuff like this was the impetus for the federalized drinking age in the US.
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…
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…
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.
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.…
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% o…
In reality, this discussion should be around regulatory capture. But that's too hard, so instead, we get into a Europe vs US pissing match. It's stupid. It's foolish. So, instead of discussing how to better fight regulatory capture, we just try to show off how special we are. I say again: sigh.
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…
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taxicabs_of_the_United_Kingdom#...
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> 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.
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…
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…
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?