Prohibition in 2004

[viscousmemories]

So this is something new to me: It is illegal to sell alcohol in stores in the city I'm currently living in. However, there is a movement afoot to LEGALIZE IT!! :pimp:

Anyway, I don't know if I'll be voting in that special election, in part because that's the only issue I'm aware of that will be voted on, but also because I honestly don't know what I think about it. The party animal/alcoholic/liberal in me says, "That's an outrage! What year is this, 1950?! I'm an adult, thank you very much, I will make my own decisions about what I do or do not buy at the store!"

But then some other part of me as yet unlabeled (denial? I'm sure it has something to do with the fact that I quit drinking last year anyway) says, "Well it does kinda make sense that if you allow gas stations and convenience stores to sell alcohol, you're going to attract drunks, vagrants, college students and other undesirables. :P I'm living proof that the crime rate goes up when people drink - at least if I'm people. Besides, it's not like people can't just drive to the next town to buy their alcohol. Sheesh.

IMHO, the most compelling arguments pro and con:

Pro:

1. It will bring in tax revenue! (but only 1 penny on the dollar)
2. We'll get us Costco, Whole Foods, and other companies that refuse to set up shop in a dry city 'cause they'd have to modify their inventory.
3. It would be like 2004!

Con:

1. Increased crime rate will cost taxpayers that penny, and maybe more.
2. Unsavory characters will hang out at convenience stores and gas stations.
3. It's just like 1950!

[JoeP]

By stores you mean any stores? Can you get alcohol in restaurants?

Here in SA beer and spirits can only be sold in licensed outlets (bottle stores), but most supermarkets stock wine. No alcohol can be sold on Sundays. This is draconian and an affront to civil liberties :P, but I don't know of a single "dry town" here or in the UK. It's an alien concept to me.

[viscousmemories]

By stores you mean any stores? Can you get alcohol in restaurants?
You can, but from what I understand that's a fairly recent development.

Here in SA beer and spirits can only be sold in licensed outlets (bottle stores), but most supermarkets stock wine. No alcohol can be sold on Sundays. This is draconian and an affront to civil liberties :P, but I don't know of a single "dry town" here or in the UK. It's an alien concept to me.
In the city I'm in now, only bars and restaurants can sell any alcohol. Grocery stores, convenience stores, gas stations, etc. cannot sell liquor, beer or wine. I've heard of the bottle stores concept before. I think there are some dry counties here in the States that do it that way. And IIRC in Michigan stores weren't allowed to sell alcohol on Sundays or some Christian holidays.

Anyway is it an affront to civil liberties even if the majority of the city residents vote to keep it this way? I dunno. A few years ago I would have been outraged by the idea, but today it seems like a reasonable choice for a community to make. Am I infected with conservatism? :P

[godfry n. glad]

Hmmm.... If you can buy alcoholic beverages _anywhere_ in town, it's not a dry city, by my standards.

Oregon doesn't ban, but does restrict access to distilled alcoholic beverages. Beer and wine can be purchased at almost any convenience store or grocery (not to mention bars and taverns - which must stop serving alcohol at 2 am, to reopen at 6 am)...but no spirits.

To buy spirits in the State of Oregon, one must go to one of the state licensed outlets (Oregon Liquor Control Commission - OLCC), which are open 9-7, Monday through Saturday. If you want a stiff drink on a Sunday and don't have any at home, you'll either have to wait or go to a bar.

Oh... I think the total tax burden for alcohol in this state is over 100%. Well over 100%. Inelasticity of demand, y'know.

Oregon lost it's last holdout dry community last year. The town, not far from the state capital, is the home of a state university and, as you might expect, the similar sized small town that abutted it to the west was replete with bars, taverns and alcohol outlets. It was a short walk to a drink. Drunken students could crawl home....and did.

And, vm? Unsavory characters already hang out at convenience stores and gas stations. That's a wash. Adding alcohol to the mix will only increase the probability of drunken unsavory characters.

If you really want to talk about prohibition in the 21st century, lets' talk about cannabis.

godfry

[viscousmemories]

Oh... I think the total tax burden for alcohol in this state is over 100%. Well over 100%. Inelasticity of demand, y'know.
Betraying my ignorance on the subject of economics: What's a "tax burden"? I see that all the time but I don't know what it means.

And, vm? Unsavory characters already hang out at convenience stores and gas stations. That's a wash. Adding alcohol to the mix will only increase the probability of drunken unsavory characters.
Okay fair enough. But in my experience drunken unsavory characters are still more dangerous than regular unsavory characters. As my Dad was fond of saying: "I didn't get in trouble every time I drank, but every time I got in trouble I had been drinking." I could say the same, really.

If you really want to talk about prohibition in the 21st century, lets' talk about cannabis.
Indeed. I read an article recently (in Maxim, no less) about the millions of dollars and loss of lives involved in the massive assaults on foliage in Tennessee or something. The stupidity of such just astounds me.

[dave_a]

Con:

1. Increased crime rate will cost taxpayers that penny, and maybe more.
2. Unsavory characters will hang out at convenience stores and gas stations.
3. It's just like 1950!

If it is just your city with this ban and nearby ones don't have it then 1. isn't likely to hold true since there will be no shortage of booze in your town.

2. isn't going to be true in any place I have ever lived. I regularly buy alcohol at gas stations, but have never hung out outside one nor have I seen anyone doing it. I am not even sure if it's legal to hang out in the parking lot drinking beer, but I am certain it would be considered loitering at a minimum. It just doesn't happen.

I have a friend who went to Ohio for work and he bought a bottle of brandy, his drink of choice. Got back to his hotel room and poured a drink. He said it tasted like watered down booze. He looked at the label and found out it was. Evidently that's the law in Ohio, but I guess they have state stores where the normal stuff is available. Seems really silly to me.

There is a counter parallel here with drug prohibition. Some nations have experimented with creating legal zones where hard drugs may be sold, purchased and used. These experiments have been disasters with the area quickly degenerating into a cesspool. The explanation is pretty plain. An island of legalization is created in a sea of prohibition so everyone packs themselves into the safe zone magnifying the problems exponentially.

With cities that are "dry" when their neighbors aren't they are foolishly trying to avoid the problems of alcohol *use* by simply not selling it. This would be an island of prohibition in a sea of legalization. These don't work either because while people may not be buying the booze in the area, buying booze poses no problems. It is only the *use* of alcohol that has potential problems.

So, why not sell it, attract desirable businesses, increase revenue etc. The problems associated with alcohol use can't be made to go away by forbidding it's sale in such a small area. So, your city is minimizing the positives of alcohol (the revenue and employment) and doing little, if anything, to minimize the harms of alcohol (it's use).

[viscousmemories]

Con:

1. Increased crime rate will cost taxpayers that penny, and maybe more.
2. Unsavory characters will hang out at convenience stores and gas stations.
3. It's just like 1950!

If it is just your city with this ban and nearby ones don't have it then 1. isn't likely to hold true since there will be no shortage of booze in your town.
Hmm. Well it's hard to say what "nearby" is around here. Irving is a fairly sizeable city, but you're right that it's probably a 15 minute drive to buy beer and wine, tops.

2. isn't going to be true in any place I have ever lived. I regularly buy alcohol at gas stations, but have never hung out outside one nor have I seen anyone doing it. I am not even sure if it's legal to hang out in the parking lot drinking beer, but I am certain it would be considered loitering at a minimum. It just doesn't happen.
I've had a different experience, but then I grew up in a college town where people were drunk all over the place all the time.

I have a friend who went to Ohio for work and he bought a bottle of brandy, his drink of choice. Got back to his hotel room and poured a drink. He said it tasted like watered down booze. He looked at the label and found out it was. Evidently that's the law in Ohio, but I guess they have state stores where the normal stuff is available. Seems really silly to me.
Yeah, that does sound silly.

There is a counter parallel here with drug prohibition. Some nations have experimented with creating legal zones where hard drugs may be sold, purchased and used. These experiments have been disasters with the area quickly degenerating into a cesspool. The explanation is pretty plain. An island of legalization is created in a sea of prohibition so everyone packs themselves into the safe zone magnifying the problems exponentially.

With cities that are "dry" when their neighbors aren't they are foolishly trying to avoid the problems of alcohol *use* by simply not selling it. This would be an island of prohibition in a sea of legalization. These don't work either because while people may not be buying the booze in the area, buying booze poses no problems. It is only the *use* of alcohol that has potential problems.

So, why not sell it, attract desirable businesses, increase revenue etc. The problems associated with alcohol use can't be made to go away by forbidding it's sale in such a small area. So, your city is minimizing the positives of alcohol (the revenue and employment) and doing little, if anything, to minimize the harms of alcohol (it's use).
Good points, all. I'm sorry I forgot to respond to this sooner. You convinced me that I should vote against the ban if I voted at all, but I wasn't planning on voting at all. But when I heard that the vote was going on today I almost went and voted against just to fuck with the die-hard capitalists saturating the neighborhood with vote yes stuff. I had forgotten about your post here until I just came back to talk about the fact that the vote is happening today.

Oh and I didn't end up voting 'cause I can't prove I live here. I still haven't gotten a drivers license and I have no other evidence of residency. I'm gonna try to get on that next week, though, or at least before November.

[Ymir's blood]

NC has a weird way of handling it. Counties can be 'dry' but municipalities within the counties aren't affected by it. The county I live in 'dry' but the towns of Boone and Blowing Rock aren't. Stores within the city limits can sell beer and wine, but stores outside the city limits can't. Both towns have 'ABC' (liquor) stores that are closed on Sundays. 'Liquor by the drink' is prohibited both in the county and towns.

:friday: :prost: :martini:

[viscousmemories]

NC has a weird way of handling it. Counties can be 'dry' but municipalities within the counties aren't affected by it. The county I live in 'dry' but the towns of Boone and Blowing Rock aren't. Stores within the city limits can sell beer and wine, but stores outside the city limits can't. Both towns have 'ABC' (liquor) stores that are closed on Sundays. 'Liquor by the drink' is prohibited both in the county and towns.

:friday: :prost: :martini:
Yeah that is weird. :quaff:

[godfry n. glad]

Oh... I think the total tax burden for alcohol in this state is over 100%. Well over 100%. Inelasticity of demand, y'know.
Betraying my ignorance on the subject of economics: What's a "tax burden"? I see that all the time but I don't know what it means.


Oh, wow... This has been hanging here how long?

Phew. That's an old question.

Here goes anyway:

Tax burden , as I was using it, was a reference to the portion of the final price of a bottle of alcoholic beverage (in the said case, distilled spirits) that is attributible to government taxation. With local, state and federal excises on alcohol, that amount can equal or exceed the cost involved in producing, packaging and distributing the alcoholic beverage (100+% tax burden). I don't believe the tax burden (that portion of final price due to tax) is as high for beer and wine beverages in my state. It's still there, but not as high. Alcohol is an excellent source of government revenue. The inelasticity of demand (that demand does not go down significantly with increases in price - like those due to tax) makes it a steady revenue producer. Gambling shows similar results. Cigarettes, too.

'Zat help?

godfry

[viscousmemories]

With cities that are "dry" when their neighbors aren't they are foolishly trying to avoid the problems of alcohol *use* by simply not selling it. This would be an island of prohibition in a sea of legalization. These don't work either because while people may not be buying the booze in the area, buying booze poses no problems. It is only the *use* of alcohol that has potential problems.
What I didn't realize is that there were a total of eight cities in the surrounding area here with legalization initiatives on the ballot. I thought we were already on an island of prohibition. Well we are now, anyway. 5 of the 8 passed the legislation, and the others (including my city) rejected it - something like 6,000 NO vs. 3,000 YES votes. :doh:

And yes, that does help godfry. Thanks. :)

[Gawen]

I live in a dry county. The city just went through this crap of voting to open stores to sell beer and wine (forget anything harder than that) and the Christian majority voted it down. The Super Target was all set for this. when the vote went through in the negative, Target opted for a regular store without the grocery part. Walmart is pissed off. All the local restaurants are pissed and some are closing because people can go a 1/2 mile away into Ft. Worth to a restaurant that serves alcohol.
Those restaurants that are able to serve beer or wine in my city have to pay a huge license fee and patrons must join a 'club' and pay a fee to drink.