That’s a novel concept for the SD Legislature. Let the market decide. Or at least move control back to the local level.
Ed Olson, good for you.
No, not for your past participation in the mainstream coalition. I’ll still probably give you a hard time on that one for a while to come. But GOOD FOR YOU on your comments on South Dakota’s silly liquor license laws.
Some people have made hundreds of thousands off of holding on to them. We have businesses who won’t open because they can’t get one. We have businesses that don’t sell liquor, but have the license. We have people that have two or more, but only one bar. I think it’s high time that the state moved away from making liquor licenses a commodity.
As moderate a Republican as Ed Olson might have a tendency to be (I kid because I love…), his comments in the Argus Leader might have some people wondering if he’s drank the Kool-aid of the conservative side of the GOP:
A controversial measure to remove the limits on how many liquor licenses cities and counties may issue as part of an effort to remove what many see as a barrier to economic development is sure to surface in the 2008 Legislature.
Republican Rep. Ed Olson of Mitchell said he’s seriously considering a bill to take the caps off the number of liquor licenses allowed. He’d let each local government make its own policy.
“Let them figure it out,” Olson said at a recent meeting of a legislative committee reviewing operations of the state Revenue and Regulation Department.
“I would like to see the legislation, and I’ll probably bring it myself… that would open the licenses up but make it local option,” he said.
Remove interference from state government. Put the decision back to the local level (or better yet, blow the doors wide open for future applicants). Is it just me, or is there a slim possibility that the nanny state might be dealt a blow on this one. A slight blow, but a blow nonetheless.
I’d note that this is one bill coming up this next session that Republicans should get behind. Removing state government regulation. What a novel concept.
A concept whose time has come.
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Comments
I think the decision should be made locally as to how many liquor licenses should be issued. There are nice restaurants that cannot come to cities because they don’t have any liquor licenses left.
I don’t know how they have done this, but I’ve heard that Sturgis has 22 bars for a town of 7500 (11 1/2 months of the year). They have one liquor license and all of those bars have to buy their liquor from the city. Maybe someone from Sturgis or the Black Hills area can enlighten us on this.
There might be a few folks that would be against allowing more liquor licenses. Business vs assocations like MADD or religious groups.
The state should remove all caps, call it deregulation, just like the feds did to trucking, airlines and phone companies, bye bye, ma bell.
I have a drug store, do you think the state would limit the number of licenses to protect me and provide for my retirement?
The bill proposed last session limited the new license to nonsmoking/ no video lottery places that had over 50% of their revenue from food. It will be interesting to see if Olson’s bill is an all out deregulation or is the version designed for food places that also want to serve liquor.
#7 Did you have to pay $250,000 just for the license as some liquor dealers have to do? If you want to fork out that much money maybe a limit could be put on. NO, I am not in the liqour business, except to consume once in a while.
Wasn’t there a bill to allow for liquor licenses in “enterprize zones” that would encourage new development. This measure failed because of the strength of the liquor industry’s lobbying efforts.
I hate to say it but Ed’s measure will most likely have the same fate.
At least there was some reform in last year’s session that requires a license holder to be open at least 60 days. This should hopefully stop the speculators from hanging on to it to make a profit.
I have some sympathy for the business owners that had to pay the big bucks for the license but if you went back and asked them when they were buying the license if this was fair, they would say absolutely not and would have supported this idea. Now that they have paid, they don’t want their investment to become worthless even though this never was intended to turn out this way. This is a perfect example of what happens when government gets involved and creates more problems. If the license is the most valuable part of the business, there is something wrong with that!
#11, you are correct that there was a compromise bill last year that expanded licenses in developing and blighted areas. Most importantly it also stated that the license couldn’t be sold for more than what was paid for it. I think that it may have more support this year than last as an outright repeal is going to be very tough but this is a good attempt at compromise. If the liquor people know what’s good for them, they will support the compromise or face a growing threat of an outright repeal of the cap.
It’s greed vs. free enterprise, who else do we protect in retail; no one; and don’t scream about expansion of liquor, you’d think if you listened to the other side everyone would get drunk. It won’t happen, and some people may go broke because they don’t know how to run a business. Let the market decide who can operate.
There is no other state-issued license that can subsequently be traded on the open market, period. If you have any sort of licensure from the state of SD and you choose to quit business, you are not allowed to sell that license. It simply reverts back to the state.
My suggestion is that the people holding the existing licenses would be paid a “reasonable” fee for the license. This would be similar to negotiations when the state takes land under eminent domain. Their newly issued liquor license would be payable to the appropriate entity for a flat fee.
This would end speculative holding of a license. You could also put insurance and/or bonding requirements on license holders as they do with many other license and permit holders currently in the state which would further decrease people just “holding” a license.
The liquor license is not unlike the license to grow tobacco in the South. Only a priveleged few can get permission, and often by relatively non-democratic means.
To Billy Joe and TomTom…
Conservatives don’t like gov’t regulation, it’s not about their love for liquor. Ever hear of the Whiskey Rebellion? Protesting heavy-handed gov regulation and taxation is part of American history. Whereas, smoking dope and complaining are part of hippy history. As well all know, other than Jimi Hendrix hippies have contributed nothing to this country and never will.
Want to know the concern most people have about legalizing dope? There is no roadside test to determine if you’re high when you get pulled over. You hippies get your crap together and develop that technology, and I’ll vote to legalize dope so you idiots can legally turn your brains to mush.
Just watch what happens if the legislature comes up with a plan to compensate license holders for the decline in value of their license, suddenly that won’t be good enough either.
The real issue they have, is that the state now limits how many competitors they can have. That’s the real bottom line, is they don’t want any more competition, so they use the devaluation of their license as an excuse.
18. Clearly an anal-retentive, Oedipus complex. I suggest courses in finger painting, ceramics, and jazz appreciation.
Let’s face it, the legislature is only for local control when it supports their agenda. If they have to sacrafice local control to accomplish something, they’ll drop it like a bad habit.
Very few stand up for local decision making. The legislature is about taking power away, not allowing people to decide for themselves.
PP. Just an honest question? Who was in control of the government when we went down this slipery slope? I don’t think it was the democrats that are the government nanny staters you talk about.
It probably was the Republicans that passed the legislation controlling the number of liquor licenses. At the time there probably was a compelling reason to do so. As with many things, times have changed.
Whoever commented about Sturgis having 22 bars has never gone there in November obviously. This too, has changed and is probably necessary to keep the Rally a viable proposition.
I’m really not that concerned about R’s and D’s at a state level. I really believe that, for the most part, there is a modicum of common sense that gets used.
What scares the heck out of me is the R’s and D’s at a national level. I thank God, Buddah, the Great Spirit and Allah regularly that they hate each other so intensely that their ability to get things truly accomplished is significantly limited.
So, PP, you don’t like the state creating an artificial market for liquor licenses? What do you think about the state creating artificial profits for people by prohibiting other, less harmful intoxicants?
You are such a hypocrite.