OPINION: OUR ABCs: Rationales for Liquor Monopoly Don't Hold Up

Aug 07, 2009 (Richmond Times-Dispatch - McClatchy-Tribune Information Services via COMTEX) --
NOC | Quote | Chart | News | PowerRating -- Given the recent contretemps surrounding Northrop Grumman's information-technology contract with the commonwealth, this might not be the most auspicious hour for Bob McDonnell to propose privatizing the state's liquor stores. But the GOP candidate is not the first to raise the idea. It has become a hardy perennial, chiefly because its merits are not subject to the changing political climate.

The state monopoly on hard-liquor sales is an artifact from the post-Prohibition era. The 21st Amendment repealed Prohibition but gave states control over booze. The result often has been a dog's breakfast of conflicting social and statutory imperatives that the courts occasionally -- e.g., regarding direct-to-consumer mail-order shipment -- have had to clear up.

At present, Virginia maintains its monopoly on hard-liquor sales, but lets other establishments sell beer and wine and mixers made with small amounts of the hard stuff. The most frequently proffered reasons for keeping the state monopoly are: (1) to raise revenue and (2) to promote temperance.

Together, the arguments conflict: The more Virginia does one, the less it can do the other. The rationales don't stand up any better individually, either.

If ABC stores raise money for state programs, then why not open a chain of state shoe stores, or furniture stores, or auto dealerships? Why not decree that no one but the commonwealth should be permitted to sell tobacco products, pornography, prescription drugs, firearms, or other products of a patently profitable but potentially harmful nature? The state does none of those things. So why should it sell booze?

THE TEMPERANCE argument falls down on multiple grounds. First, there is no correlation between state control of hard liquor and the incidence of booze-related social ills such as binge drinking, underage drinking, or alcoholism. Control state Vermont has a higher rate of underage drinking than non-control Nevada. Oregon, a control state, has a rate of binge drinking among women of child-bearing age nearly three times that of Kentucky, a non-control state. And so on.

(It's worth mentioning at this point that advocates of privatization do not suggest doing away with the ABC department's enforcement operations. The state still would have an important role to play in ensuring that private package stores do not sell booze to minors, that restaurants and bars have the appropriate liquor licenses, and so on. Privatization refers to only the ABC's retail outlets.)

Second, state control does little to limit access to booze, especially given the availability of beer and wine. It does not limit liquor purchases by volume or frequency (there's no one-bottle-a-month law, for instance). And it is gradually opening up ABC stores for Sunday sales, both in response to consumer demand and in order to raise more revenue.

Third, while the state has a legitimate interest in reducing the social ills associated with alcohol, it does not have a legitimate interest in urging the virtue of temperance per se. The state has no more business telling you how much to drink than it has telling you how much to eat or how many sex partners you should have.

BUT SUPPOSE the commonwealth did have such a paternalistic justification. Even then, it would not follow that maintaining a state monopoly on hard-liquor sales does any more to promote private virtue than privatized sales would.

A comparison with hard-core pornography seems handy here; Virginia might monopolize the sale of that stuff, too. But doing so could give porn an implicit state seal of approval -- just as the state's operation of a lottery makes playing the numbers seem more respectable than a back-alley game of craps. McDonnell, a social conservative, might well understand that if the commonwealth needs to send a message about sin, then divorcing the state from the liquor business entirely would send a more consistent one.

Unfortunately, McDonnell has proposed ABC privatization as a way to raise funds for transportation. That is bound to bog down the question in a green-eyeshade debate over dollars and cents. But it places the focus on the wrong issue. Like the lady in the old joke who agrees to sleep with a stranger for a million dollars but not for five, it's really just haggling over price. Even if state liquor sales are right on the math, they're still wrong on the merits.

My thoughts do not aim for your assent -- just place them alongside your own reflections for a while.

--Robert Nozick.

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Contact A. Barton Hinkle at (804) 649-6627 or bhinkle@timesdispatch.com.

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