Time to rethink NC's ABC laws

Published January 27, 2015

by Julie Gilstrap, The Locker Room, January 26, 2015.

On Saturday evening, I visited the Top of the Hill Distillery in Chapel Hill.  While there are breweries and wineries popping up all over the state, there are far fewer distilleries in North Carolina, so the tour and tasting there was a bit different – and really interesting.  I learned a bit about the distilling process, saw the facilities, and tasted samples.

If you’ve ever been to a brewery or a winery, you know what comes next – the shop.  Like what you tasted?  Buy some and take it home!

Only it doesn’t work that way at a distillery.  No, North Carolina’s ABC laws prohibit distilleries from selling their spirits directly to customers.  If I want to buy any of what I tasted Saturday evening, I’ll have to go to my local ABC store and see if they carry it.  Many across the state do, but not all, so there’s no guarantee I’ll be able to get it easily.

We at the John Locke Foundation have long supported privatizing liquor sales in North Carolina.  We’re one of only 17 states that use this sort of system to control sales.  (The details of what is and isn’t under state control in those states varies widely.)  But distilleries like Top of the Hill are actually asking for something much more limited.  They’d just like to be allowed to sell one bottle per person per year to folks who visit their distillery.  One bottle.

There were maybe a couple dozen people on my tour Saturday.  I’m guessing half would have bought a bottle if the law had allowed it.  And there were two tours that day.  So we’re talking maybe 20-25 bottles they could have sold that evening.  It’s not huge volume, but it could be significant for a small business.  It’s time for North Carolina to rethink its ABC laws and loosen regulations that make business more difficult for entrepreneurs like those at Top of the Hill Distillery.

http://lockerroom.johnlocke.org

January 27, 2015 at 9:28 am
Norm Kelly says:

It's a good beginning to start changing the existing ABC laws. If this would allow SOME private sales, as in the case listed in this post. But we can't stop there. We must go to the next step.

Complete privatization of liquor stores across the entire state is what's needed. There is absolutely no reason for our state to be in ANY business. And lib pols have already shown that this is considered a precedent. Libs consider it a good precedent. Thinking people, and conservatives (which is often the same group!) know that the state owning ANY business is a bad precedent. Remember when libs in Raleigh used the socialist ABC system as justification for the state owning a hotel in Raleigh? This is a bad precedent that will eventually allow the state to be in other businesses and compete directly with private businesses. Kinda like the Town of Cary owning & running a theater - competing directly with other theaters in the area and within the Town.

Imagine the reduction in overhead costs to the state if liquor stores were privatized and sold off. First there would be an immediate, more or less, income to the state from the sale of the businesses. Then there would be the immediate drop in the number of government employees. Private enterprise employees contribute to the economy; government employees suck off the economy. (contrary to the opinion of socialists in Washington - think Hillary & Warren!) Counties like Wake who claim that sales tax money from ABC stores is used to fund schools would whine like he--, trying to convince the masses that the sale would mean huge losses to the government monopoly school system. But sales tax income is still sales tax income. Regardless of who owns the liquor store, the sales tax still gets paid. So in reality would Wake, or any other county, experience a loss of sales tax revenue to waste on the school system?

It's time, while Republicans control Raleigh, to convince a majority of legislators to pass a bill to privatize liquor sales across the state. It's only good business. And it's only good for business. Which is one thing government is not supposed to be involved in - business.

January 27, 2015 at 5:36 pm
Tom Hauck says:

Thank you for your very timely column.

Would it be possible for the John Locke Foundation to do a study of how much more North Carolina Government would receive it they liquidated the ABC business and turned it over to existing private stores?

I think there would be enormous additional revenue to the state as they would receive the taxes and have no expenses. Expenses include some very expensive ABC Directors on the many Boards. many employees along with their health care and pensions, rent and utilities for hundreds of stores, slow moving inventory (paid for but not sold), inventory loses (bottles that have been paid for but cannot be sold due to breakage or theft).