Revise state liquor laws? (Bend: sales, neighborhoods, buying)

[PNW-type-gal]

I seem to be in a polling mood. Would you support something similar to I-1100 in Washington state, which seeks to break the state hard liquor sales monopoly?

Costco and liquor: Good or bad for Washington? - seattlepi.com

I've made the choices somewhat vague because we don;t have a specific bill in front of us to debate the exact wording.

[Pretzelogik]

Originally Posted by PNW-type-gal

I seem to be in a polling mood. Would you support something similar to I-1100 in Washington state, which seeks to break the state hard liquor sales monopoly?

Costco and liquor: Good or bad for Washington? - seattlepi.com

I've made the choices somewhat vague because we don;t have a specific bill in front of us to debate the exact wording.

Be careful, that's pretty radical stuff...somewhat akin to pumping your own gasoline. Welcome to the 21st Century.

[Smiled]

No. Have a look at California... especially the poorer neighborhoods. The liquor stores are a blight.
Leave it as it is.

[hamellr]

I'd have to see the economics behind it. Washington's failed to pass as they (the Government,) feel they'd loose too much money from the sales.

[Larry Caldwell]

My problem with state liquor stores is that they are not responsive to customer needs. I shop for gourmet liquor, and can't find many of the interesting kinds. For instance, several California distilleries make a brandy based on the muscat grape. It's really good, and tastes entirely different from the Cognac imports or the domestic imitations, but Oregon liquor stores don't carry it because it's a low volume item. I have to drive to California to buy it. The same with Genevers (Dutch gin), which has as many specialty distilleries as Scotch. No, it doesn't taste anything like English gin.

If the state didn't have a monopoly, I bet there would be ONE good liquor store in the state of Oregon.

[Squidlo]

Buying liquor from state controlled stores, because we are too irresponsible to manage the regulation and sales of alcohol otherwise? The state can still tax the hell out of it. The current formal system is outdated and should at least be reviewed. In the industry I work in, the worst excuse you can use for not evaluating a process regularly is... "We have always done it that way". Marching off to obscurity in the name of "tradition".

I don't drink much, but I can spot a sluggish or wasteful process a mile away.

I did a quick search for liquor on the intarweb and found plenty of sites that deal in the specialty high dollar stuff that Larry craves. I would imagine that by purchasing and taking delivery of said items is a violation of state law or code akin to buying tobacco online as well.

[hamellr]

Originally Posted by Larry Caldwell

My problem with state liquor stores is that they are not responsive to customer needs. I shop for gourmet liquor, and can't find many of the interesting kinds. For instance, several California distilleries make a brandy based on the muscat grape. It's really good, and tastes entirely different from the Cognac imports or the domestic imitations, but Oregon liquor stores don't carry it because it's a low volume item. I have to drive to California to buy it. The same with Genevers (Dutch gin), which has as many specialty distilleries as Scotch. No, it doesn't taste anything like English gin.

If the state didn't have a monopoly, I bet there would be ONE good liquor store in the state of Oregon.

Seriously? Both my local liquor stores will bring in anything they can actually order for me. And I've asked for some pretty obscure stuff including some pear brandy that is only made in at a small monastery in Austria.

They also have a webpage to search what stores carry. Find Liquor In Oregon | Oregon Liquor Search Any store can order anything that is carried in any of the other stores.

[BruceM]

I would be in favor of free enterprise and doing away with our state's "communistic" liquor stores.
BTW, I consider myself to be liberal/progressive on most issues but I see no reason for a state monopoly on retail liquor sales.

[PNW-type-gal]

Well, as a beer and wine drinker, one thing I notice in grocery stores when I visit other non-state-controlled areas is that generally their beer and wine selection takes back seat to their hard liquor - roughly the same size area is allocated to "alcohol" so there is less beer and wine. On the other hand, stores like Total Wine and BevMo in California make up for that by having nothing but alcohol (including beer) in good selection and very reasonable prices. Beer tends to be quite a bit cheaper in California, but, since their beer tax is more than twice ours ($0.20 per gallon vs our $0.08), I suspect the easy hard alcohol availability drives the price of beer down to compete.

My closest town is a little over 40,000 people and there are two state-run stores, on opposite ends of town - until this year neither of them were open past 6pm and they were both closed Sunday.

I'd certainly be for a change in the liquor laws, allowing hard alcohol to be sold in more places.

[Bendite]

A few years ago when my daughtger married, my husband hosted a Scotch tasting for the groom. The Scotch brands available at the Bend liquor stores were the usual selections but we wanted something unusual. There is a store in San Francisco that specializes in Scotch but they can't ship to Oregon because of our laws. We ended up having them ship the Scotch to Colorado where our son lives and he and his wife packed the bottles in their luggage and brought them here. We don't usually drink hard liquor but when we entertain we like to have a variety of options that just aren't available in our state-controlled stores. We did ask once about special orders and that was a possibility if we'd buy a case. A case would have lasted us 50 years