Maine’s liquor business

Leave it to Gov. King, the killjoy. No sooner do state legislators begin celebrating their bipartisan spirit of cooperation than the governor tosses them a surefire inter-party-splitter. His proposal to try for the third time to get the state out of the liquor business, however, is on target and suffers only in that it is not strong enough.

The Strong Enough Award goes to Sen. Jim Libby of Buxton, who has submitted legislation that would remove the state from both the retail and wholesale sides of the business. Gov. King’s plan merely removes the state from the retail end of things — a good idea, but the underlying outlook that stops the state from actually handing a bottle to a customer also stops it from selling the cases to the store owners who hand the bottles to customers.

“The issue is jobs,” said the governor Monday. “It’s 100 jobs, and it’s a big issue for the union … .” That’s the number of state jobs left at the remaining 27 state stores, compared with the hundreds of jobs at the 200 privately owned stores that sell liquor. Preserving 100 liquor-store jobs in a state that not long ago cut more than 800 from human services, mental health, prisons and environmental protection among other departments is, to put it kindly, misguided.

Besides, it isn’t 100 jobs. It’s 100 minus the number of employees who would be hired by the private stores that would replace the state stores. And if the argument is that private stores wouldn’t move in or that the state employees wouldn’t earn the same in the private sector, doesn’t that tell the state that in addition to the liquor business, it is also in the subsidy business?

The job-protection argument often hides behind the control argument, which is supported by people who think that if the number of privately owned stores increases from 200 to 227, statewide drunkeness will also increase. To the extent that the state ought to control the consumption of liquor, it does so best through setting operating hours, maintaining siting requirements for stores and regulating advertising displays, in addition, of course, to age restrictions. But the widespread presence of private stores existing without additional mayhem essentially dissolves the idea that Maine needs to control the retail end of the business.

Maine should get out of the wholesale end of the business for the same reason that it shouldn’t get into the business of wholesaling beer and wine or cigarettes or handguns — outside of enforcing the laws regarding these products, the state has no compelling need to interfere with day-to-day operations. This attitude is as old as the nation itself, but for those who are not convinced, here’s a new one: The recent tobacco settlement, agreed to after lawsuits by various states threatened that industry, has encouraged the litigiously active to contemplate crippling suits against gun manufacturers and liquor producers. As an official government seller of sin, Maine makes a particularly convenient target.

But unlike the retail side, which costs Maine taxpayers $4 million a year, the wholesale end clears $20 million annually through markups passed onto retailers. That’s a big hole in the budget to make up, probably big enough to make lawmakers not want to try to fill it. And that returns lawmakers to the debate over the retail end — which typically divides Democrats, who favor keeping the state involved, and Republicans, who favor getting out.

It would be a shame to see all that bipartisan bon ami ruined by the governor’s proposal to privatize liquor stores, such a shame, in fact, that lawmakers ought to bend to the inevitable and agree with the governor. After years of fighting over this issue, cooperation now would truly be newsworthy.