Last call for state-sold alcohol?

• Author: Mooneyham, Scott
• Position: CAPITAL GOODS - Editorial

The General Assembly may get the chance this year to perform that rarest of legislative feats--shrink government and promote free enterprise. For conservatives, it's an opportunity they would relish, right? Maybe not. It would mean ending state and local government's monopoly of the liquor business in North Carolina, which began 77 years ago as Prohibition came to a close. Intended as a check on the evils of alcohol, its demise would be due to other evils.

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Since last year, the scent of scandal has hovered like a whiff of whiskey breath about the local Alcohol Beverage Control boards that operate liquor stores in the state. In New Hanover County, the entire ABC board resigned amid revelations that its administrator was making nearly $280,000 a year--roughly five times the state average for ABC supervisors. In Mecklenburg County, a liquor supplier treated local ABC officials, employees and family to a $12,700 dinner that included 10 shots of Don Julio tequila that bumped the bar tab $600. The 32 attendees tossed back 71 mixed drinks, 11 beers and 14 bottles of wine. It took the resignation of the chairman and administrators before heads stopped pounding from the public outcry.

In calling for the resignation of the Mecklenburg officials, Jon Williams, the new chairman of the state ABC Commission, decried the "culture of entitlement" around some local ABC boards. Gov. Beverly Perdue instructed him to have a consultant put a price tag on the business, indicating that she was open to the idea of some privatization. Legislative leaders announced that they would begin looking at reforms during the upcoming legislative session. But for all the talk and indignation, any plan to wean government from the bottle has some high hurdles.

Liquor is a big, lucrative business in North Carolina. In 2008, sales statewide totaled more than $700 million. The state controls those sales through a three-member ABC Commission appointed by the governor. The commission sets prices for booze sold in package stores, determines what brands are sold and oversees a state warehouse in Raleigh from which all liquor is distributed. Local boards, formed by counties, cities or towns, operate local ABC stores and hire employees who work in those stores. Money from those sales pour into state and local tax coffers.

No other state does it quite this way. Thirty-two license privately run package stores or allow grocers and other retailers to sell liquor as...