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Everyone hates government bureaucracy.
If anyone ever bothered to poll it, it would rate somewhere below a root canal and jock itch in popularity. That’s because we all hate those people who have seemingly been put in place to make our lives more difficult, our simple tasks more cumbersome and ridiculous and expenses more expensive.
But here’s the thing I’ve found: People often miss some of the worst examples of government bureaucracy.
Because that bureaucracy is often buried in the seeming necessary mechanisms of government, or buried among the finer details of the political process. This is where bureaucracy is exploited, where politicians use it to their benefit, where savvy lobbyists lurk and do their best work for their clients.
Nowhere is that more commonplace than with the mind-bending combination of new alcoholic beverages, the Alabama Legislature and the Alabama ABC Board.
If you doubt this, simply Google up the stories about Alabama attempting to approve any sort of new alcoholic beverages, such as those seltzers that are everywhere now, craft beers or other malt-based beverages in a can. There are ridiculous debates, comical stalling tactics, absurd amendments attached and theatrical hand wringing that would make a Broadway actor proud.
Remember when we went through literally years of debate over wine delivery? Or when the late, great Alvin Holmes shouted “GERMANY?!?!?” on the House floor while stumping for “the beer we got now” because “it drank pretty good, don’t it?”
In reality, though, what’s happening is that our elected officials are using the ready-made bureaucracy of an alcohol-controlled state to stuff their campaign coffers. Because for every new product introduced, there is a lobbyist representing a company selling a current product that doesn’t want that new product on the shelves.
That’s what’s currently happening with ready-to-drink canned cocktails.
It’s a relatively new line of the most popular mixed drinks, like daquiris, mimosas and the like, that come pre-mixed and available in a can. The alcohol content meets the limitations of the state (7 percent in Alabama).
But currently those products aren’t allowed on the shelves at convenience stores and the like. Because Alabama is an alcohol-controlled state, dating back to the days immediately after prohibition ended and some states elected not to lift the ban on alcohol sales.
That’s why all of the Alabama counties and cities have passed constitutional amendments to allow alcohol sales. Our state constitution bans alcohol sales, so those amendments – like with gambling – are necessary.
Those laws also have established Alabama’s ABC Board, which effectively gives the state a monopoly on sales of alcoholic beverages. The state gets to determine which types of alcoholic beverages are sold and where they’re sold.
And changing those rules of what gets sold and where falls to the legislature. Which means selling a margarita-in-a-can at a Wawa turns into a whole thing. Where the people we’ve elected pretend that this is a very tough decision with many, many factors to consider.
It’s not, of course. The drinks have 7-percent alcohol. Just like beer. Just like Whiteclaws. Just like a thousand other drinks currently being sold at convenience stores. What possible reason for additional regulation could this 7-percent-alcohol drink warrant over this other 7-percent-alcohol drink?
It’s ludicrous.
What’s actually going on here is that a handful of lawmakers are holding out because they’re milking the process on behalf of certain donors, like the soft drink companies or the wine and beer sellers or the distributors of certain other products.
This is the sort of bureaucracy that should get more hate. It’s the sort of bureaucracy that has crippled Alabama for generations. It’s kept us from having all sorts of nice things, mostly in the name of phony morals and smoky backroom deals.
