Single Issue Voter? Just Wish you Paid Less for Booze?

Are you a single issue voter? Are you the guy or gal who just wishes you paid less for your booze? Sure you are!

Liquor laws in Texas are archaic and cause prices to necessarily rise. Why? Because only a liquor store is allowed to sell liquor! You know, those tiny strip-mall stores with a small cross-section of variety and the cashier smells like the product?

Heck, even in California (yes, California) I could buy a nice Glenlivet-12 scotch for $24 at Costco because they brought it in by the pallet (economic tradeoff of cheaper prices through Economies of Scale though they only had about 7-8 types of scotch).

In Texas I pay twice as much because 'fuck you that's why'. Also, some politician's brother-in-law owned a bunch of liquor stores and wanted instant market-share by the simple passing of legislation.

I mean, how easy is it to implore the evils of alcohol, then claim a statute's passing is 'for the children'. Politics like this writes itself! Only thing we're missing is terrorists or pedophiles (aka the Holy Legislator's Trifecta).

I'm thinking of running for office in Texas just to repeal our blue laws, alone!

Fee.org discusses lower regulations, lower taxes and how they were a boon to the craft beer industry.

Yet, the number of breweries per capita differs dramatically amongst the states. According to the Brewers Association, people in Vermont have 9.4 breweries for every 100,000 adults over 21. Sadly, Oklahomans have only 0.5 breweries per 100,000.

Economics can explain this.

Business Insider claims the millennials are killing the Beer Industry with a 1% decrease over the last year.

Maybe the heavy regulation of distribution and sales is killing the industry, but not in the way the article suggested.

You can drink 10-15 different micro brews in the Tri-Cities of Washington State alone, so why would I ever buy big 3 (Budweiser, Miller, Coors) ever again?

The real question is why do these giants of the industry continue to survive despite so many amazing options around the country being available? Of course they can purchase them like In-Bev purchased Wicked Weed, but that was to compete with New Belgium and Sierra Nevada.

That is answered in the fact that these local brews can't easily get to national distribution because of the heavy regulation on distribution and sales. It's easy to get through the first big regulatory hurdle of manufacturing, but distribution is a Ponzi scheme.

If we ended such regulation at the state ad federal level, beer sales would be thriving nationally as people in California would easily be able to purchase Yee Haw, Holston River, JRH, etc. and no one would ever want to purchase piss water again.

The industry would shift, not die. And that makes me thirsty.