Originally posted by justinsweatt
Welcome to another example of the Government not engaging in free market capitalism and producing a bill that not only price fixes but then taxes the hell out of you in the process. I'm sure they give property tax breaks to Cost Co in Washington as well so you're probably losing tax revenue for the state while big box stores like Cost Co reap the profits. In my opinion that's just stupid.

As much as I am unhappy with Costco's behavior here, they do not get property tax breaks. You are wrong. The bill does not "price fix." Indeed, the opposite is true. The state monopoloy on hard liquor was, in essence, price fixing, and that has now gone away. You're wrong there, too. The state is not losing money on the deal. Its revenues will be up slightly. Wrong yet again. Making up "facts" to then criticize like this doesn't help anyone. In my opinion that's just stupid.

Originally posted by CB328
This bill is terrible for a few reasons. First, only allowing huge stores to sell liquor is creating a monopoly for warehouse stores at the expense of small businesses. Second, they said in the voting pamphlet that the bill adds a big "sin tax" to the liquor, so it probably isn't going to save the citizens any money. It is another scam to enrich the rich, and do nothing for all of us.

Any time the government is taken out of the equation is a win for consumers. Especially if that government entity is directly involved in the selling of a retail product. Now competition will thrive, and more people will have jobs.

/TOA

Originally posted by schuyler

Originally posted by justinsweatt
Welcome to another example of the Government not engaging in free market capitalism and producing a bill that not only price fixes but then taxes the hell out of you in the process. I'm sure they give property tax breaks to Cost Co in Washington as well so you're probably losing tax revenue for the state while big box stores like Cost Co reap the profits. In my opinion that's just stupid.

As much as I am unhappy with Costco's behavior here, they do not get property tax breaks. You are wrong. The bill does not "price fix." Indeed, the opposite is true. The state monopoloy on hard liquor was, in essence, price fixing, and that has now gone away. You're wrong there, too. The state is not losing money on the deal. Its revenues will be up slightly. Wrong yet again. Making up "facts" to then criticize like this doesn't help anyone. In my opinion that's just stupid.

Thanks for your response. I would be very surprised if the state of Washington didn't give tax breaks to CostCo. The bill does price fix, in my opinion, if you set parameters that will only allow for companies of CostCo's size to sell in a building that the state has set as a defined space. That, in my opinion, is price fixing. Imagine the Tax Revenue and jobs created if they allowed everyone, no matter what the size of the building or space, to sell liquor. That's all I was saying. Didn't the bill also levy a huge sin tax in the deal as well?

Costco is offering job interviews to the 1000 workers that will lose their jobs because of the bill.

Anyways, maybe we won't have to cut the funding for public school transportation.

The world doesnt need these kinds of drinks.

If you ask me.

Oh well, that's the way it is now. I think it will be better regardless if people's precious wine goes up a few dollars.

Maybe if I drank or worked at a liquer store I'd be upset.

Pennsylvania still has the "State Store' system for everything except beer.

A few years ago I was on the board of officers for a club that I belong to. We had just raised the prices of our drinks, to conform with a raise "across the board" on everything that we had to purchase from our "State Store" when I stopped at an out of state club. I was suprised at the prices of their drinks and I asked how they were able to keep them so low? I was told that once a year they put all of their inventory out for bid. They used the previous year's volume as a basis and asked suppliers to bid on what they could supply it for. The competition resulted in prices about 25% less than Pennsylvania prices.

If you want to know how screwed up Pennsylvania's system is, here's an example. Pennsylvania tells my club which "State Store' it has to make it's purchases from. Last year we ran out of a popular beverage and our "assigned" store didn't have it. There was another "State Store" a few miles away that had what we needed, we were told that we were not allowed to purchase it from there. When an audit is conducted, the club has to produce reciepts for every alcohol purchase. If we had a reciept from a different "State Store" we could be fined or lose our license.

Originally posted by JIMC5499
If you want to know how screwed up Pennsylvania's system is, here's an example. Pennsylvania tells my club which "State Store' it has to make it's purchases from. Last year we ran out of a popular beverage and our "assigned" store didn't have it. There was another "State Store" a few miles away that had what we needed, we were told that we were not allowed to purchase it from there. When an audit is conducted, the club has to produce reciepts for every alcohol purchase. If we had a reciept from a different "State Store" we could be fined or lose our license.

Washington state is the exact same. Theoretically a bar can be fined and/or lose their liquor license if they sell alcohol that was purchased from a store other than their assigned one. And god forbid if you simply run out of a bottle of something and send an employee to a store to pick it up.

Is the US not like the UK then with alcohol? Over here, if you have a shop, you simply need to apply for a permit to sell alcohol - and then get vetted, etc but it isn't that difficult.

This means potentially every shop could sell alcohol, whether large corporation or small corner shop.

I just got back from the liquor store.

I picked up a bottle of Root that I'm gonna play around with. The guy at the store said once those bottles are gone it won't be coming back, the state is not doing anymore special orders because of the law that was recently passed.

Looks like some things are gonna be hard to find soon, some things impossible, some things maybe never again.

I did hear that Wine World will be carrying liquor as soon as its officially legal. But I expect internet sales for certain products to skyrocket.