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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

#71

Post by gallerytungsten »

wtbob wrote: post #60
gallerytungsten wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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. 'Someo…

I mentioned fires as a point I would be concerned about.

While distilling is heavily regulated at the Federal, state, and local levels, the Feds did not ban it due to concerns over fire safety. Rather, a chief reason is "to protect the revenue," which, in the case of Federal excise taxes, is substantial. ($13.50 per proof gallon; a proof gallon is 1 gallon at 50% ABV.)

The Feds don't really concern themselves with fire safety. Rather, just as you desire, that's regulated at the state and local level. The TTB outlook is that you have to satisfy the local and state levels as far as fire safety is concerned.

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

#72

Post by endersshadow »

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…

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?

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

#73

Post by chimeracoder »

bane wrote: post #51
stonemetal wrote: post #49

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.

That makes sense if you're thinking of a drivers' license (where you have to pass a qualification test), but these licenses serve solely to restrict the supply.

It varies by the locale, but I'm not even sure if there are any qualifying tests for obtaining a taxi license (other than basic criteria, like having a commercial drivers' license in good standing, etc.) in most parts of the US. (London is an interesting exception: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taxicabs_of_the_United_Kingdom)

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

#74

Post by maxerickson »

wdewind wrote: post #65
bane wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> Then again, even the Irish are getting irritated with the Brits coming over to Dublin to get pissed and get in fist fights in the street and causing other bits of ruckus. Stuff like this was the impetus for the federalized drinking age in the US.

It's only sort of federalized though:

The National Minimum Drinking Age Act of 1984 (23 U.S.C. § 158) was passed on July 17, 1984 by the United States Congress. It punished every state that allowed persons below 21 years to purchase and publicly possess alcoholic beverages by reducing its annual federal highway apportionment by ten percent.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Minimum_Drinking_Age_A...

(I'm posting because I think the mechanism might be news to some readers, not to argue about whether it is federalized or not)

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

#75

Post by tptacek »

typicalrunt wrote: post #70
rayiner wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

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?

The subtext behind an invocation of Wrigleyville is that drunk bar clientele from outside the area makes it difficult to live in. Wrigleyville is a running joke among people who live on the north side of Chicago.

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

#76

Post by dublinben »

orp wrote: post #68
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…

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#...

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

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

#77

Post by sscalia »

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.

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

#78

Post by ctdonath »

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…

Under the same law, it's illegal to put your brew in the freezer to remove the water (freezing point of water is higher than that of ethanol). No chance of harm in that process, yet still severely punished.

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

#79

Post by dublinben »

endersshadow wrote: post #72
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…

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?

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

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

#80

Post by [deleted] »

chimeracoder wrote: post #66
rayiner wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> 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…

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