Studio8 - Uniting the Arts

Just in time for New Year's Eve, what's the liquor control policy in your state?

Here in Oregon we have the OLCC, Oregon Liquor Control Commission. It's been around since the Fifties or Sixties or earlier as far as I know. This has been described to me as communism, because it is centralised liquor control. As an example, we have a distillery in Hood River, Oregon called HRD, Hood River Distillery, that makes HRD Vodka among other products. HRD Vodka sold at an OLCC franchise liquor store in Hood River, Oregon or served in a bar there has to first go to the OLCC warehouse in Portland to be prccessed, then shipped back to Hood River to be consumed. A lot of miles in between, a lot of diesel fuel burned, which points up the downside of too much centralization.

Also, liquor is not sold in grocery stores here in Oregon. It can legally be sold only at OLCC franchised liquor stores. And their hours are strictly regulated by the state. In years past all liquors stores were closed on Sundays. Oregon was a dry state on Sundays. Now, the regs have been eased it seems. More and more liquors stores are open on Sundays, though only a few that I know of are open past 8:00 p.m. on any day. This isn't a problem if one simply plans their drinking ahead of time. But it is a bit...I don't know, draconian?

Liquor liscencing for bars is also strictly controlled by the OLCC, and they do it with an arbitrarily iron fist. Minimal complaint is enough to get a place shut down. Thanks to the news media, everyone who lives near any bar knows this. One person calling every night to complain is enough to get a bars lisecence revoked, or at least brought under review, which is as good as a revocation.

One such bar in downtown Portland, a virtual icon in this city, is facing closure, not due to liquor liscencing regs but fire regs. A city commissioner seems to have it in for them. I understand why if I don't support his method. This bar is a Greek bar and restaurant. In the bar, part of the big show they put on every weekend is to have people line up in front of a chair the owner stands on as he pours Ouzo right out of the bottle into peoples mouths while the audience counts down the time. The winner is whoever can stay for the longest count. If you've ever drank Ouzo you know this is far from a responsible drinking practice. This bar has had numerous incidents over the years, police responses to disturbances outside at closing time and such. Myself, the first time I ever witnessed the events I wondered how they had managed to get this by the OLCC for all these years. The only answer I had was the iconic status of the place. It had probably been going on for long before the OLCC even existed. Now, however, it seems the OLCC has caught up with them, in the form of a city commissioner on a mission, willing to use roundabout tactics. This city commissioner heads up the fire bureau. He's going after the bar on those grounds. Nothing to do with liquor policy at all. Gotta love a politician. They haven't been able to shut this place down in all these years for liquor policy reasons, but now they've found another way. True as it may be that any bar where the bartender pours booze straight out of the bottle into the mouths of patrons ought to be shut down, it still smacks to me of dirty politics.

So what's liquor control policy like in your state?

And Happy New Year!

Peace,
Barry

Private ligour stores here in the lone star state
Virginia had a system like Oregon
State Run
Michigan went by county. Some counties were dry some were not.
In the dry counties there were "private clubs" that anyone could join and they served drinks there. Lenawee county when I lived there was a dry county, beer only. There was a petition going round to change the law but there was a powerful lobby from the beer companies against allowing the sale booze.

Washington D.C. had some strange liquor laws.
But that was forty years ago maybe they changed them now. If you were in a night club and you wanted to go to another table to sit with friends you could not carry your drink over, a bar employee had to bring it to you. Also no state taxes on liquor.

Kansas was weird too, I mean different. I can't remember if it was a 'dry state' I think so. I think Carrie Nation was from Kansas.

Kansas's alcohol laws are among the strictest in the United States. Kansas prohibited all alcohol from 1881 to 1948, and continued to prohibit on-premises sales of alcohol from 1949 to 1987. Sunday sales only have been allowed since 2005.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_al ... s_by_state

How many states have you lived in?

I had to fill out a application for the U.S Customs service back in 1980 to get a cartman's license to haul the ship containers out of the the marine terminals to the rail yards. I think I had about twenty former residences to list at the time. And I have added many more since then. I should try to remember them some time. And about two hundred jobs. One year I had 17 W2's. It was August before I filled my taxes that year. It took that long to catch up with my mail.

please pardon the ramble
and pardon the pardon too.

I get an occasional bottle, it's price approximately doubled by a long list of taxes. I can't buy it reasonably, like in Nevada. In stores. I have to drive for miles to specific, controlled (taxed) places. Occasionally. Liquor control. I know little or nothing about liquor-nightclub control however, which was probably the main point here, so... sorry about that.

Actually, the topic was not liquor control only in bars/nightclubs but liquor control in general. I've heard Texas doesn't even have an open container(in the car) law, but that was decades ago, probably changed by now. I've heard of drive-thru beer barns in Ohio. I remember when most of the states' drinking ages were 18 or 19, only a few 21. Now they're all 21 aren't they? I know that when I turned 21 the strip club regs changed in the Portland metro area (there were exactly three growing up, pasties and g-strings only, had been that way since my dad came of age) and full nude became allowed. Every mom and pop tavern in town, it seemed, hired a contractor to throw up a stage and almost overnight Portland became the per capita strip bar capital of America. Not that I complained about it then, mind you. The Downtown Greek Cuisina, it was announced on the news this morning, has closed. The big purple octopus from above the marquee is to be sold on ebay. So if you want a big purple octopus, go to ebay, you can buy one there. If you want to have a geriatric Greek man pour Ouzo into your mouth straight out of the bottle, I don't know where you can go for that anymore.

It's the end of an era. They win.

Peace,
Barry

In Virginia, the liquor stores are called ABC Stores (Alcohol Beverage Control) and owned/operated by the state. Virginia ABC stores also sell Virginia wines. You can't buy any other wine or beer there, though. Wine and beer (non-Virginia brands) are sold in Grocery stores and convenience stores.

In Massachussetts, they also have state-run stores. I used to live there, too, years ago. Only in Mass, they're called "Package Stores" for some odd reason I was never able to figure out. We called it "Going to the Packie" ... heh

I've lived near DC most of my life and used to often go downtown to hang out and party at various bars and nightclubs (back in the day). I've never heard of what 'Truckin' was describing where you couldn't carry a drink from one table to the next without a waiter carrying it for you. Bizarre. Maybe he went to a private club or something? I donno. I've carried my drinks in DC from table to table and sometimes from bar to bar (when they weren't looking... LOL!)

In Maryland, where I grew up, they also have state-run liquor stores and I think they're also called ABC stores. BUT, you can't buy beer and wine in the grocery stores there. They also have state-run beer and wine stores which are separate entities. Then again, this might be by county, now that I'm thinking about it, because I remember traveling from one county to the next and the situation was different in Maryland.

I remember being in the grocery store with my mom when I was a kid, 6 or 7, maybe 8, (this was in Sacto, Calif, as the postal code went in those days [and 4cent stamps!!!]) and her picking bottles of booze off the shelves of an aisle in the grocery store. Whiskey, vodka, gin, whatever, it was all available just like pickles or mayonaise. Never was it like that in Oregon, which was like the "great homeland" both her and my dad hailed from. I also remember going up to Oregon too many years for July 4th. Nothing but punks and snakes for sale in Oregon in those days as far as fireworks were concerned. Mom always said it was because of all the trees. Nobody wanted to start a forest fire. Now, in Washington across the river full on bottle rockets and mortars for sale. Every year around here gets more like a war zone. Cops can't keep up, though they try. People blow $2000+ per annum on nothing more than impressing/outdoing their neighbors, but that's a whole nother topic.

But hey, we did start the Bottle Bill, right? You'd all still be tossing that shit in the trash if not for us.

Peace,
Barry