I-1183 Liquor Initiative

[JimmyHoffa]

I think you can make moonshine as long as it isn't sold and you make less than 5 gallons of each liquor at a time.

[pianoman9701]

I think you can make moonshine as long as it isn't sold and you make less than 5 gallons of each liquor at a time.

Yeah, I thought is was something like 12 gallons a year for personal consumption.

[pips4bucks]

I'm on the fence on this until I do some more research. 

A couple of things that come to mind though;
 
Government is a parasite, so it has to suck up our resources in the form of taxes.  If the State is selling liquor to make a profit, that would mean they wouldn't be taking additional taxes from lost revenue made from liquor sales.  Regardless of how inefficient government is, they have to be making a profit.  I find it hard to believe they can't make money on booze.  But, leave it to government to screw up making a profit on alcohol. 

On the other side, if liquor sales are privatized, that would mean lost revenue from the State, therefore the most sensible step would be to raise the taxes on said liquor.  So your $29.95 bottle of firewater would cost even more.

I'm no fan of government and like to see any part of government privatized because of lack of efficiency, profitablity, and customer service issues, not to mention business owners need help with profits as well. 

Just like they did on the $30 vehicle tabs deal, when they lose revenue from one area, they'll create a way to make it up somewhere else.

[Mike450r]

I think you can make moonshine as long as it isn't sold and you make less than 5 gallons of each liquor at a time.

Yeah, I thought is was something like 12 gallons a year for personal consumption.

Do not think so,  I believe it is illegal to manufacture liquor in Washington unless you are a licensed manufacturer.

[Curly]

I'm on the fence on this until I do some more research. 

A couple of things that come to mind though;
 
Government is a parasite, so it has to suck up our resources in the form of taxes.  If the State is selling liquor to make a profit, that would mean they wouldn't be taking additional taxes from lost revenue made from liquor sales.  Regardless of how inefficient government is, they have to be making a profit.  I find it hard to believe they can't make money on booze.  But, leave it to government to screw up making a profit on alcohol. 

On the other side, if liquor sales are privatized, that would mean lost revenue from the State, therefore the most sensible step would be to raise the taxes on said liquor.  So your $29.95 bottle of firewater would cost even more.

I'm no fan of government and like to see any part of government privatized because of lack of efficiency, profitablity, and customer service issues, not to mention business owners need help with profits as well. 

Just like they did on the $30 vehicle tabs deal, when they lose revenue from one area, they'll create a way to make it up somewhere else.

Some good points there.  I wonder where the state will come up with the lost revenue from alcohol sales?  I'll probably end up paying more fees/taxes to make up for it, but I still would vote yes because the state should just get out of the liquor business.

[PlateauNDN]

Plateau,
Can the county pass its own law restricting sale just in that county?  Or can your tribal council prohibit it from being sold on the rez?  I know in the south there are dry counties and even cities.

I can answer this.

Yes a tribe could prohibit booze from being sold on the rez. As far as off the rez everytime somebody applies for a liquor license no matter if they are a bar, restaurant, or mini-mart the "local authority" is notified. The "local authority" is either the city or the county if the location is not within city limits. The city/county can either not respond to the Liquor Control Board or they can request that the LCB not issue that license. Cities/counties could go one step further prohibiting liquor sales, essentially creating a dry area like some cities/counties in the south.

Several years ago the state passed a law allowing cities to create "alcohol impact areas" which essentially limit what types of alcohol stores can sell. Cities must petition the LCB to create these areas. These are often in areas with high homeless numbers and drunk in public areas. Many of the "ice" beers and fortified wine are banned in these areas. Spokane, Tacoma, and Seattle have several AIA areas. Vancouver has a voluntarily one, basically trying to get compliance so they don't have to petition the state for an actual official area. Kent startes a voluntary one but it never really took off or got much support from the city.


Also, there are some cities in WA that do not allow non-tribal casinos, even though they are legal at the state level.

For the most part bigtex is correct.  The Yakama Reservation has been a dry reservation for a long time.  They even took steps in the 90's to enforce the resolutions created many many many years ago but to no avail.  Reasons were due to non-tribal members are allowed to sell alcohol on the Reservation but only within incorporated cities.  The Tribe has taken measures to never allow Tribal Members regardless of where they plan to open a business to never sell alcohol but outside of that they don't have jurisdiction over non-tribal members.

There are 3 incorporated cities in the heart of the Yakama Reservation and there are at least 7 large grocery stores that are owned by non-tribal members that sell alcohol and would more than likely stock liquor. 

The smallest inc. City is Harrah and they have a store and also 2 different bars next door to each other and all sell alcohol. 

Wapato has 2 big chain grocery stores and 2 smaller mexican stores and 2 small grocery stores all that currently sell alcohol.  It also has 4 bars within a 5 block radius.

Toppenish has 2 big chain grocery stores and 2 small mexican stores and all sell alcohol.  No bars.

The alcohol problem has drastically increased over the last 5 years within the homeless population.  It was predominantly older age groups but has now shifted to younger demographics as young as early 20's.  The numbers here on the Reservation have gone from 10-15 to as high as 50+ and not just Tribal Members.  We are starting to see hispanics, whites and blacks within these groups as well.

[rjn cajun]

Big no here. This would mean 1000`s more people without jobs. My family and all my hunting party work for or retired from small distributers around the area. This would mean that no one would have to go through distibuters anymore and could go to your big store to get what you need. All the convienent stores could go to big stores. all the drivers merchindisers salesman etc. Instead of the big wigs up state taking jobs away we as voters will be taking jobs away from each other. Perfect just what they want.

I think your fears are unfounded. Why would a store buy from another store when they can buy from distributors and cut out the markup? That doesn't make any sense to me at all.

There won`t be any distibuters for the stores to go to. All the big stores like Costco will be able to go direct to the manufactors. How is a small distributer going to compete with manufactors. Yes they all work for each other but if you had the chance to cut out the middle man would you? Out of any inititive this one is the most misleading. Don`t believe everything you see on tv. If these ads were true it would have passed by a land slide last year. All I`m saying is before you decide to vote on it read the hole inititive before voting. Even the fine print. Costco is behind the hole thing. They want the public to believe it`s just liqure they want. So the public thinks well we`re getting the state out of the liqure buisness by voting on this and passing it. So if it passes next year you`ll be buying liqure at costco. The prices of name brand beer will be to high unless you buy it in bulk so I hope you like Kirkland beer. Just today they put up another million dollars for this inititive.

[Karl Blanchard]

Kinda skimmed on this but I am glad to see people talking about the transshipping issue.  Costco and walmart have huge storage warehouses and their own truck fleets that they can store products they get for good deals.  I am a route driver for Pepsi and this is gonna mean major lay offs for us if it passes.  Its so much bigger than booze!  Look at who is backing this thing!  I don't want the state's hands in anything in my life but read the fine print for gods sake!

[pianoman9701]

Big no here. This would mean 1000`s more people without jobs. My family and all my hunting party work for or retired from small distributers around the area. This would mean that no one would have to go through distibuters anymore and could go to your big store to get what you need. All the convienent stores could go to big stores. all the drivers merchindisers salesman etc. Instead of the big wigs up state taking jobs away we as voters will be taking jobs away from each other. Perfect just what they want.

I think your fears are unfounded. Why would a store buy from another store when they can buy from distributors and cut out the markup? That doesn't make any sense to me at all.

There won`t be any distibuters for the stores to go to. All the big stores like Costco will be able to go direct to the manufactors. How is a small distributer going to compete with manufactors. Yes they all work for each other but if you had the chance to cut out the middle man would you? Out of any inititive this one is the most misleading. Don`t believe everything you see on tv. If these ads were true it would have passed by a land slide last year. All I`m saying is before you decide to vote on it read the hole inititive before voting. Even the fine print. Costco is behind the hole thing. They want the public to believe it`s just liqure they want. So the public thinks well we`re getting the state out of the liqure buisness by voting on this and passing it. So if it passes next year you`ll be buying liqure at costco. The prices of name brand beer will be to high unless you buy it in bulk so I hope you like Kirkland beer. Just today they put up another million dollars for this inititive.

Fair enough. I'll check into it. Thanks for filling me in on stuff I didn't know.

[Hunterman]

I sure hope this passes this time, and Cosco sell booze.. I would be a better customer when they start giving out the free samples   

Hunterman(Tony)

[dreamunelk]

My view:
This will just increase profits for large corporate retailers.
These profits will leave the State.
People will loose Jobs and some small business owners will lose their business.

To me it is three strikes, so a NO vote.

[bigtex]

I sure hope this passes this time, and Cosco sell booze.. I would be a better customer when they start giving out the free samples   

Well not sure if your sample comment is a joke but...The Liquor Control Board controls alcohol sampling in WA and will continue to control it if this initiative passes. Currently the LCB hand picks which stores can give out samples, this pilot program started about 2 years ago. There are some (like 20) non-liquor stores that can sample beer/wine and liquor stores which can sample their products. There are restrictions as to how many samples you can get, I believe one sample per person a day. The days that the stores will be providing samples must be reported to the LCB in advance and the LCB will frequently send out a plain clothes officer to see if the store is following all regulations.

Basically, don't expect Costco to be giving away samples of booze anytime soon, even if this passes.

[MikeWalking]

I sure hope this passes this time, and Cosco sell booze.. I would be a better customer when they start giving out the free samples   

Hunterman(Tony)

I'd like to see that, not that I don't already know what I like.  But there's some new $60-$100 a fifth stuff out there now I'd like to taste first...

[Atroxus]

My view:
This will just increase profits for large corporate retailers.

As opposed to the small retailers that profit now? You would rather the state keep taking all the profit? Seems to me they have not shown the best track record of spending that money wisely.

These profits will leave the State.

Really, all the taxes on liquor are just going to mystically disappear overnight? I don't see that happening unless people stop buying liquor, and if you look back in time to prohibition you will see that is not very likely. Some profits might leave the state, but I think far more would go back into our communities than what the state would have us believe.

People will loose Jobs and some small business owners will lose their business.

To me it is three strikes, so a NO vote.

The only people who will lose jobs are state liquor store employees. All those "small businesses" that would go out of business are STATE OWNED. Move all those liquor sales to private businesses and guess what, they will have to HIRE people to handle that extra business. Maybe even some of those people who have previous experience working in liquor stores. Our government is supposed to exist to SERVE US, not to make a profit off of us. Personally I would rather have seen one of the initiatives from last year pass, and am not thrilled with limiting licenses based on square footage of stores. I would much rather see this pass now to get the state out of sales, and fix it down the road than continue with the current program though. It may be a less than ideal solution but it would be way better than what we have now.

[boneaddict]

12 gallons for consumption.  CAN'T SELL OR TRADE IT!