Longmont City Council approved alcohol tastings at liquor stores, up to 26 times per year, at their meeting earlier this week. Local ordinances control the frequency of tastings, Longmont licensees said they needed this to compete with neighboring communities' tastings. I like that Mayor Julia Pirnack argued for once-a-week, even though she was unsuccessful.
Is a limit on how many tastings you can offer necessary? The state leaves it up to each town. The residual puritanism that drives such a decision is disgusting. Whatever problem the Council is worried about curtailing is a function of individual behavior at a given tasting, not the frequency of tastings. And there is a laundry list of laws you can violate with subsequent negative behavior. If a business wants to make a legal product available for sampling each day they should be allowed to do so. Blue laws suck.
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8 comments:
Agree totally. Blue laws do suck.
Has there ever been an effort to open car dealers on Sundays? Many other states do it, so I don't want to hear any excuses of why it can't be done - like banks are closed, etc.
Also, have you tried to buy tires on Sundays? Is this related to the above?
Talk to Paul Weissman. He tries to run a bill to eliminate blue law every year.
I guess the big wig car dealers lobby against it, since they can make the same sales in six days as seven, without making the sales force crawl out of bed on Sunday. Good for car dealer, bad for consumer that would rather shp on Sunday.
Dan,
You need to look up the actual law of this. It is the state law that limits the frequency and what days.
The Colorado Police Chiefs Association lobbied against the current law. My recollection is one cannot limit what can be tasted at a store, all or none. The problem is that what can be viewed as a tasting can also become a promotion - buy a case of beer here and the store provides the buyer with a shot of tequila.
It is not residual puritanism but public safety that "drives" this.
As for the blue law issue, it was a fight within that state between grocery stores open on Sundays and the liquor store owners who wanted at least a day off with their families and not wanting to hire help. Different issue totally.
When I live in MA, liquor stores were closed on Sunday. Then NH opened up state owned stores open on Sunday with no sales tax. Their parking lots became filled with MA residents and NH super malls sprung up at the common border. Eventually MA changed their blue laws realizing half of MA was shopping in NH on Sundays.
Are you trying to say that a tasting would constitute a public safety issue? Sorry, but that argument's absurd.
You couldn't possibly believe if liquor stores offered samples we would create more drunken drivers, or more alcoholics, could you? That's the only way it becomes a public safety issue.
We have wine tastings now, has that created a problem? Or is wine somehow different?
The liquor store owners didn't want a day off with their families, give me a break. Their bigger fear is that someday grocery stores will sell liquor, like in most other reasonable states in this country. What value is there in limiting the days of the week a business can operate?
And, the fact so many MA residents shopped in NH on Sunday is because that's what the people wanted. MA had to finally listen to the people, as they were talking with their pocketbook.
The Colorado State Legislature is too influenced by special interest groups. Although Weismann has tried to change the blue laws and it's failed, if it went to a vote of the people, I'll bet it would pass.
d-b,
You can read the actual law. And the position of the CO's police chiefs. DUIs was their argument. We're talking "distilled spirits" as well.
I haven't read the law in a while. But it can't be limited just to wine. Or just wine dealers.
NH was just an hour's drive from Boston. The NH border state real estate values went through the ceiling. I worked for a company where one of the co-founders bought a lot and built a second campus up there. Made a fortune.
Of course the liquor store owners didn't want grocery stores to be limited to 3.2 beer
Sorry I didn't respond last evening. Just talking about free samples made me jump in the car and drive over all the way over to Daveco Liquors. Great selection, great prices, no samples. Since I couldn't expand my horizons by sampling other brands, I bought the same cheap stuff I always buy.
I can visit almost any one of the many wineries in this state and get free samples. I can go to Redstone Meadery in Boulder and get free samples. I can go to Coors or Anheuser Busch and get free samples. Have all of these contributed to the DUIs? Statistics could be tweaked to prove so, I guess. If our police had their way, we'd have prohibition again, and that went well, didn't it?
While we're at it, let's outlaw those free food samples at Costco. It has to be contributing to the obesity problem in this country. Free food for fat people, that doesn't seem right.
Seems the Lafayette Winefest would've been vetoed by the LPD if they were going to be consistent in their belief these things cause DUIs. Oh, wait, that's sponsored by the City. What was I thinking? OK for the city, not OK for liquor store owners.
If it was only wine and beer, no problem.
But it includes distilled spirits.
The PD would love the handing out of the shots of the hard stuff. Just sit outside and pick of the DUIs. But they rather not have drunk drivers on the streets. .08 thse days.
Talk to your favorite CO legislator and get it fixed.
Longmont is a joke, which is why we have over 1000 foreclosures this year.
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