End the price-fixing nanny state

North Carolinians are tired of the Nanny State—and the latest idea from the State Alcoholic Beverage Control Commission is a textbook example of government deciding that adults cannot be trusted to make their own choices.

The State ABC Commission is studying minimum “floor” prices for low-cost spirits, including vodka and tequila. In plain English, that means government-imposed price controls designed to make legal products more expensive.

The first question should be simple: Where is the explicit authority? The General Assembly has authorized the Commission to set liquor prices and state law already lays out a detailed pricing formula. But lawmakers have not clearly told the Commission that it may invent a new minimum-price regime.

 A major policy choice with consequences for consumers, restaurants, retailers, and producers belongs before elected legislators—not imposed through expansive agency interpretation.

 The Commission says the proposal is motivated by public health. That claim is hard to reconcile with the conduct of the same government-controlled system.

Local ABC boards run lotteries and special events for scarce bottles, turning alcohol purchases into promotions complete with winners, excitement and urgency. Wake County’s 2025 holiday lottery drew 7,377 initial entries. If aggressive promotion of sought-after liquor is acceptable when it drives traffic and sales, the system cannot credibly scold consumers for buying affordable vodka or tequila. The ABC establishment cannot have it both ways.

The Commission’s own staff report gives away the game: the proposed floors are intended not only to affect consumption but also to increase revenue returned to local ABC boards and the governments and programs they support.

Meanwhile, the state system openly celebrates the hundreds of millions of dollars generated by liquor sales.

 This looks less like a coherent health strategy and more like protection of tax receipts, board profits and a government monopoly facing softer revenues.

North Carolina’s ABC bureaucracy has already provided ample reasons for skepticism. A 2026 state performance audit found its warehouse contractor missed the required on-time delivery target in every quarter reviewed. That finding follows years of public controversy surrounding waste, mismanagement and misconduct across the broader ABC system. Giving this structure another lever to manipulate prices is not modernization. It is mission creep.

Consumers already pay taxes, markups, fees and surcharges on every bottle. They do not need another paternalistic mandate making the most affordable choices more expensive. The General Assembly should reject price floors, insist that agencies stay within clearly delegated authority, and undertake a serious modernization of Chapter 18B.

It is time to end the Nanny State. It is time to replace monopoly-minded control with transparent, competitive and accountable liquor laws that respect adult consumers and North Carolina businesses.