By Cole Boehler
ABL Editor, Publisher We seem possessed of a national schizophrenia. Or maybe it's a national hypocrisy.
The social engineers doggedly work toward building their own version of Utopia by attempting to perfect the species and society, and the media seems to jump aboard every "progressive" bandwagon in their quest to master or demonstrate "effective advocacy journalism."
But while the activist crowd campaigns for limiting access to adult beverages as well as reducing overall consumption as a means to address a myriad of perceived social problems, it seems many of these same folks are pushing for dismantling the alcohol regulatory system or otherwise making adult beverage more conveniently available at lower prices.
If it were up to the bi-polar "progressives," we would:
-- reduce the under-aged exposure to alcohol advertising and repeatedly "sting" alcohol retailers while arguing that we should be able (have the right?) to quickly and easily obtain adult beverages over the unregulated internet or through direct mail catalogs.
-- increase penalties against retailers who sell to the underaged, but not increase penalties against the underage who attempt to perpetrate a fraud against businesses by using illegal false documents.
-- work to restrict happy hours and drink specials while advocating that our own favorite bistro--heck, anyone with a skillet--or micro brewery be able to readily obtain a cheap license to retail wine, beer and spirits for on- or off-premise consumption.
-- argue that allowing Costco and Wal-Mart to retail alcohol, including spirits, is just good fundamental capitalism which will increase competion and keep prices low, while we campaign to increase alcohol taxes because higher prices are said--fancifully--to reduce unplanned pregnancies and sexual assaults.
-- campaign for allowing Sunday liquor sales or alcohol retailing in formerly dry counties because "blue laws" are quaint throwbacks to antiquity, while bemoaning the social problems caused by alcohol abuse.
-- restrict or eliminate the sale of single-serve high-point malt beverages from convenience stores "because it attracts the wrong element," but proclaim that sales of single-serve wine in plastic bottles is "an exciting new trend" that allows wine to be conveniently included in our picnic plans.
-- advocate for wine, beer and spirits tastings, sometimes for hours in unlicensed retail businesses that otherwise have no connection to alcohol, while signing petitions protesting the location of a proposed licensed business because it is within 1,000 feet of a church or school.
-- claim it is your right to bring a bottle of wine or other alcohol beverage into an unlicensed restaurant--a "bottle club"--with no liquor liability insurance or server training to enjoy with your Italian cuisine, then demanding new or expanded dram shop laws and mandatory server training.
-- offer your teenager a glass of wine with dinner or a beer during the Sunday football game and chuckle to yourself when you notice your personal adult beverage inventory seems consistently light, then testify before the city commission, insisting on a keg registration ordinance to reduce underaged binge drinking.
-- snootily pan the mainstream adult beverage products from large domestic producers as "homogenous watery swill," while oohing and ahhing over the merits of the latest $80-a-bottle single-malt Scotch whiskey, micro brew with "subtle overtones of caramel, chocolate and coffee" or a fancy Chilean wine.
The fundamental underlying message seems to be, "The enlightened, educated elite should have the most convenient access to the finest beer, wine and spirts at the lowest possible prices, while the Plebian masses are too unsophisticated to properly appreciate or handle alcohol, so ought to be denied their domestic lager at $5 a six-pack, their Two Buck Chuck wine and their Old Overholt whiskey, unless they pay extra and do their imbibing out of sight."
That is what is so grating about these omniscent moral busybodies--that two standards are appropriate: one for them and one for everyone else.
Well, these are my standards:
I like an Anchor Steam beer on drought or in the bottle, but I also enjoy a cold Busch while I'm out fishing. I seldom drink wine, but the $9 bottle of St. Michelle chardonnay I bought for Thanksgiving was pronounced "delicious" by diners and was enjoyed by me.
I have tasted Balvenie Doublewood single-malt Scotch at $89 a litre and it is heavenly, but when I decide to "splurge" on spirits, it's usually the more pedestrian Bacardi Gold.
I think the three-tier system of manufacturing, wholesaling and retailing developed in our state has worked pretty well for 70 years and is not in need of an overhaul. In fact, wholesaling and retailing are two of the few economic sectors that haven't been consolidated to the point of monopoly or been lashed into corporate chains that export profits to headquarters located offshore to avoid paying taxes.
Our system for limiting on-premise availability - and the social reasons behind it - is also fundamentally sound and has been refined over the years with a series of minor adjustments via the same legislative tools we can use for future adjustments. I also understand our retailers have bought into this state-designed and -sponsored system in good faith and that it would be wrong to confiscate their assets by simply jerking the rug out from underneath them.
Alcohol beverages are not potato chips or jeans or CDs. Alcohol cannot be retailed like these more benign commodities, either. It needs and deserves - and has - a functional and effective regulatory scheme in place that calls for the purchaser to come face-to-face with the seller. It can be improved and has been and is. This is wise policy.
We shouldn't try to legislate or regulate people's tastes when it comes to these beverages because personal
taste is just that - personal. Who am I to judge the consumer of a malt liquor inferior to one who prefers a fine cabernet?
Nor should we heap on the taxes in some vain attempt to distort or control consumer behavior. The marketplace, with a reasonable regulatory scheme, will take care of this.
Regarding alcohol advertising, one of the least significant factors in under-aged drinking is advertising. It is simply not that compelling or effective. And industry codes, which are rigorously adhered to,
call for no alcohol advertising in any media that reaches a less than 70 percent adult audience.
Instead, it is likely our relentless, loud, hypocritical preaching to young people that they must never, ever touch this forbidden fruit - under increasingly onerous penalties - until, magically, at the stroke of midnight on their 21st birthday, they are somehow transformed into responsible adults capable of handling a drink (even though at 16 they can legally have sex, get married and have babies and, if we believe the self-reported polls, have likely tried marijauna).
The message: when you decide to rebel (and all youth do), drinking to excess is the most rebellious way to do it.
Perhaps we ought to teach young adults how to responsibly, with moderation, enjoy adult beverages.
But I don't expect much, if any, of this kind of thinking to be seriously considered, let alone gain any real traction. It's all simply too moderate to compel the required attention: it can't compete with the radical, the extreme, the tendancy to ban and prohibit, the hysterical shrieking, the inclination to push the voters' and media's political hot buttons, which all tends to pass as "public policy debates" today.
Dampening our national inclination to extremism would be a welcome sign of some new political and social maturity; tempering our tendancy toward hypocrisy would go a long way toward reintroducing the concept of honesty.
Source: ABL Leader, February, 2006, published monthly by Continental Communications, 125 W. Granite St., Suite 102, Butte, MT 59701.