Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Rum Deal: America’s booze laws are terrible

slate.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

151–160 of 199 posts

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

#151

Post by coldtea »

tptacek wrote: post #75
typicalrunt wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

The same happens to all areas with bars were night life is concentrated, whether there's taxi present or not.

There are completely similar places were ("drunk bar clientele from outside the area makes it difficult to live in") without any taxis (e.g in Amsterdam or Barcelona). Or places where the drunks prefer to drive (don't ask). In a dense city people can just walk there from a different area, or use the metro.

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

#152

Post by danudey »

bane wrote: post #82
joshuapants wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That defeats the purpose of the license. It's not like a driver's license where the goal is to establish some baseline level of competency, it's there specifically to limit the number of taxis/liquor stores/etc.

In many areas it is just like a drivers license and that regime works pretty well. It's a weird desire to arbitrary limit licenses. What's the purpose of that? Limiting the number of sellers doesn't really do much to limit buyers or consumption. It sounds like a bad idea that's carried forward out of momentum not something that needs to be fixed. It should be replaced with the better approach.

The reason they're limited in Vancouver (as an example) is because the structure is divided three ways; the cab companies (e.g. Yellow Cab, Black Top Cabs, etc.), the vehicle owner, and the driver (though some few drivers own their vehicles).

Drivers pay a fixed/minimum amount to the vehicle owner and the cab companies, and then they drive around to get as many fares as they can so that they can make sure to make enough to cover their costs, after which they start making a profit.

With more cabs on the road, there are more fares to go around, which means that drivers have to split the same number of fares over a larger pool of drivers, which means the entire industry gets poorer; everyone makes more money except the drivers, who need to start being more aggressive, cutting corners, cheating, ignoring regulations, etc. just to make a living. No one wants that.

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

#153

Post by tel »

danudey wrote: post #144
eli_gottlieb wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And now I suddenly feel the need to stand up on behalf of people four years younger than myself and say: drunk college douchebags are people, too. They have equal rights and an equal stake in governance, too.

Sure, but the issue in this case isn't about rights or governance, it's about local issues caused by non-local individuals. Vancouver has a similar issue, where the drinking/clubbing/partying district, Granville Street in the heart of Vancouver's downtown, is a huge destination for partygoers from all over the region; not just Vancouver, but outlying cities and suburbs as well; a city of around 600k has to take on th…

Tax/fine the bars?

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

#155

Post by jqm »

"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.

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

#156

Post by vacri »

hibikir wrote: post #138
cobrausn wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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 pu…

The legislature that unwittingly passed an honour for the 'Boston Strangler' (used his real name, not that name) lends pretty clear evidence to the idea of legislative rubber-stamping instead of disinterested investigation and fact-checking.

Politicians aren't scientists, and don't operate from root causes and facts; they operate from manipulating social factions and perceptions. If they don't see something as important to their key social factions, it's not worth their attention. Honour this Albert de Salvo guy? Sure, why not? Do it and let's move on to the stuff I want to deal with.

http://www.snopes.com/legal/desalvo.asp

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

#157

Post by sb23 »

hibikir wrote: post #138
cobrausn wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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 pu…

But, if someone were to point out that an unfair law had been renewed, they would need to justify why it was renewed. That'd be slightly better than now, right?

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

#158

Post by bane »

bane wrote: post #82
joshuapants wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That defeats the purpose of the license. It's not like a driver's license where the goal is to establish some baseline level of competency, it's there specifically to limit the number of taxis/liquor stores/etc.

In many areas it is just like a drivers license and that regime works pretty well. It's a weird desire to arbitrary limit licenses. What's the purpose of that? Limiting the number of sellers doesn't really do much to limit buyers or consumption. It sounds like a bad idea that's carried forward out of momentum not something that needs to be fixed. It should be replaced with the better approach.

Too late to edit: it's kind of interesting how each of the replies to me used the taxi industry in their counter arguments, but not liquor licenses which is what the topic is about.

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

#159

Post by nickff »

warfangle wrote: post #143
baddox wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> but implicit in that statement is that regulation is never desirable. Not exactly. What's implicit in that statement is that a structure with the physical ability to create and enforce regulations will probably create some effective regulations, and some ineffective regulations. Just like how a market will probably lead to some efficient outcomes, and some inefficient outcomes (i.e. market failures). So the questio…

How would a Free (as opposed to 'free' with regulations attached) market limit industrial pollution (some contaminations of which aren't discovered until almost a century after the original contamination[0])? In a Free market, how does an individual litigate against a multinational oil company that spills 17-30 million gallons of oil into a major metropolitan area[1]? (Very slowly: litigation has been ongoing with ne…

In a free market, property rights are more extensive than in a highly regulated market, so tort law serves many of the purposes that regulators and federal agencies currently do.

When a multinational company causes damage to a harbor, beach, ecosystem or city, damaged parties can file suit for compensation. A harbor authority may have provided a guarantee to assume responsibility for environmental problems, in order to be granted the relevant rights of way, or it may be on the other side of the law, filing suit against a company which has damaged its income stream. Landowners or municipalities can file suit for damage caused to a beach, and fishermen, environmental tour companies, or governments can file suit for damage to ecosystems.

In the United States, the EPA has absolved many companies of any responsibility, or at least greatly diminished the corporations' costs, by depriving damaged parties of a cause of action, as the EPA has the sole responsibility for many forms of pollution, and their regulation.

Free markets are not very different from mixed systems in dealing with issues like climate change, but they do make it plain to each individual that they are directly responsible for the outcomes which come to pass. This responsibility is more effective in regulating action than one might think.

In a market system, entities at fault may be defunct by the time the repercussions of their actions are apparent; on the other hand, politicians are rarely held to account on any single issue, and they are often more ephemeral than large corporations; the bureaucrats responsible for regulation are never held to account for any results at all.

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

#160

Post by warble »

cobrausn wrote: post #130
IvyMike wrote: post #59

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…

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.

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.

Post reply on HN