Vote No On One: Save Our Scotch!

As promised, here's the second part of our series on Ballot Questions on this November's General Election in Massachusetts.

This is the big kahuna. Forget the Governor's race... Forget the fact that Teddy Kennedy has a race (you mean we don't just all vote for Teddy K by acclamation?). This is the action this election season, and it is on an issue of vital importance to mature, high class people across this fine Commonwealth.

Yes, I draw your attention to a horrible miscarriage of potable spirits about to occur in Massachusetts. This question deserves immediate attention from all who care about the finer things in life, be they peaty, smokey or smooth...

Question One would purports to simply allow wine sales in grocery stores. Now, for those of you who have the horrible misfortune to live outside the enlightened People's Republic of Massachusetts, you may be confused by this sentence. But here in Mass., we generally don't allow booze sales, even wine or beer, in grocery stores.

Generally, you have to go to the "packie", the package store, to get your potent potables. So every town has a liquor store or three that sells all manner of fine consumables to the public. Now I say generally because, as a matter of fact, the Shaw's one town over sells booze. Well, beer and wine. And the Pleaseantville Foodmart sells beer and wine. And Julie's Market downtown, a convenience store, sells booze, wine, rockgut, and fine 12 year old scotch.

Now you're confused. I can see it in your eyes. Well, okay, I can feel it through your mouse. (oh yes... oh yes, right-click me... Oooo... oooo.... spin the wheel... SPIN THE WHEEL!!!)

Sorry.

Got a little carried away there...

Anyway, the truth of the matter isn't that we have a law against grocery stores selling beer and wine in Massachusetts, we simply have a law against any corporation owning more than three liquor licenses.

Now, you have to understand how important booze is to life in the Northeast. It's friggin' cold here. And, frankly, most of us are either Irish, Italian, or French Canadian. And you've got to understand... none of those races are too friendly. So booze is an important social lubricant in New England. How else do we suffer being stuck inside with our families seven months a year? And don't forget germs. There's lots of germs up here during the winter. Booze is anti-septic. So adult beverages play an important role in life in New England.

So after prohibition when the state was putting together the alcohol regulation statutes, there was much fear about the Mafia and the control they wielded in the liquor business. So to make it harder for bad guys to corner the booze market in Massachusetts, and to ensure that no one company could get a stranglehold on the spirit trade and hold us hostage, the legislature made it the law that liquor licenses were to be spread out, and not concentrated amongst a handful of people.

So the Stop and Shop Corporation, which owns all the Stop and Shops in Mass., can only have three stores that carry booze. Same for Shaw's, and Roche Brothers, and even Cumberland Farms, the ubiquitous convenience store around these parts.

Well, Question One, if passed, would strike that prohibition, as it relates to food markets. So a company that owned a number of food markets could get as many licenses as it wanted (towns would still have to approve each license, that wouldn't change).

Now, why, you ask, would I be against this?

Yeah, it would seem to be free-market capitalism at its best, and you mentioned something about scotch and this would seem to have nothing to do with scotch...

Well, I'm glad you asked. I'll tell you why...

Why'd I have to ask? I thought that was the point of this post.

Well, yes it is, and if you'd let me talk I'll get to the point...

That would be lovely

Thank you... You done?

Sure, go right ahead.

Okay. Anyway. Here's the deal. If this thing passes up to 2,500 grocery stores state wide would gain the ability to sell wine. Beer is already sold in a bunch of places. So you'd have beer and wine easily accessible without having to go to a packie. Obviously there'd be less people going to packies, so they'd make less money.

Some of them would close.

This would mean fewer sellers of booze making smaller profit margins. And if you're a packie owner under financial pressure, what are you going to dedicate more shelf space to: goddamn Kahlua that you sell by the tub, or fine, rare, speciality scotch?

The Kahlua will turnover much faster, what with all the knuckleheads making their frozen mudslides or white russians (wussies...). Sure, you may only sell one bottle of '75 Milroy Glenlivet a year, but what about that Glenlivet buyer? Are you going to reduce him to Dewars White Label? What kind of animals have we become?!?

The choice, my friends, is clear. Either we allow a profusion of (yucky) wine sales in groceries stores all over the Commonwealth, or we retain the system that has served us well, lo these many years, and keep license exclusivity in Massachusetts - and SAVE OUR SCOTCH!

Thank you, and as always, I appreciate your support.