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Comment by axlee | Hacker News Reader

Do you know a lot of places with monthly alcohol purchase quotas?

Qatar has "alcohol license" for residents. Not sure about that but what i heard your employer has to say how much you get to drink.

https://www.angloinfo.com/how-to/qatar/lifestyle/food-drink/...

EDIT: yes article mentions this

The letter must be addressed to the Qatar Distribution Company, be stamped and signed by an authorised person within the company, and include the following information:

  The applicant's position within their company
  The applicant's basic salary. The word 'basic' must be used.   To get a permit a minimum salary is needed (4,000 riyals or 1,100 US dollars)
  Whether the applicant receives an accommodation entitlement or has free accommodation
  Whether the applicant is married
  When applying for a permit an individual must fill in an application form, pay a returnable deposit and state their religion

I remember something like this in Oman as well, back when I lived there in the late 80s/early 90s.

Looking at the situation now though, it looks like it might be a very tiny bit more liberal, in that you still need a "personal consumption licence", but the quota appears to have been done away with.

Well, there are not that many tax-free places. If they didn't have quotas, there would no doubt be thriving businesses buying alcohol in Svalbard and selling it in the rest of Norway.

Transport costs might put a damper on that. Also, it sounds like it would also be subjected to import restrictions, even if it's the same country.

Smuggling is a thing, though. And transport costs tend to reduce as volume increases, and alcohol is a popular product...

Well, if we are talking illegal activities, Norway shares a long, marginally patrolled border with Sweden where alcohol is significantly cheaper. So if you are into smuggeling, I would try that first, before trying to arrange something up in the arctic sea.

Pre-covid, this was a thriving and mostly legal industry. There are quotas on how much may be imported for personal consumption.

Meanwhile, the Swedes go to Denmark for cheap alcohol, the Danes go to Germany, the Germans to Poland and the Poles to Ukraine. Thus Ukraine is the fixed point of the alcohol-flow function. This theorem was proven when I was a PhD student in a research group which contained a Norwegian, a Swede, a German, a Pole and a Ukrainian - we extrapolated the Danish connection point.

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