State liquor stores are terrible, and I’ve never heard anyone say a nice word about on base grocery stores.
> Government run grocery stores are middle of the road?
I think that's a pretty good reason for them to exist even today. We don't need the market competing to get people to drink more.
Only if you think the government should be telling people what to buy and what not to buy. I personally find that highly objectionable, particularly given the outsized power of primary voters in most places.
I think maybe you and I have different definitions for the word "mainstream". To me it has nothing to do with popularity and everything to do with what is normal and everyday.
The only people I see complaining about them are religious teetotalers.
The prices are usually higher than private stores, the merchandising is worse, the selection is usually bad, and they're generally just a miserable shopping experience. Compare them to a nice wine and liquor store in states where those are allowed and the difference is quite apparent. They also never have staff that know anything about the products which is just a shitty DMV like experience.
Prices are pretty in line with market rates. The selection is really pretty good. The shopping experience is the same as any other store (what makes a shopping experience "miserable?")
> Compare them to a nice wine
In Idaho, wine is allowed to be sold in grocery stores and specialty shops. The liquor stores are for hard beverages.
> They also never have staff that know anything about the products
Staff seems just fine with the products. But again, don't see why that's important in general.
> just a shitty DMV like experience.
I don't really know what you mean by this. You go in, find the booze you like, pay for it at the register, or ask a clerk a question if you have one (Do you have a lot of questions purchasing alcohol? Every time?) If you want a more expensive experience you can go to a wine shop in Idaho and let someone blow smoke up your ass about the notes.
Look, Idaho might just be particularly good at running a booze shop, but I doubt it. It may be that because Idaho only has liquor stores for hard alcoholic beverages it's made for a better experience all around. It certainly doesn't suffer from selection, knowledge, or experience problems. I think the only issue you might take is that it's just sorted shelves of alcohol with little flashy theming.
The staff are treated and paid well, the stores are well stocked and clean, and I pay tax free on some of the lowest prices in the country.
Why shouldn’t society recoup some of those costs from the users? And why should society subsidize those costs?
It’s interesting that it was politically acceptable to charge tobacco users more for health insurance, but not politically acceptable to charge alcohol users more for health insurance.
Allowing private business isn't a subsidy.
> Why shouldn’t society recoup some of those costs from the users?
That's what the taxes are for.
> That's what the taxes are for.
Taxes are not (should not be) for subsidizing behavior that results in a loss for society.
As we're only considering children being born, the health effects of alcohol while pregnant are known, (aka fetal alcohol syndrome) but since they're known, they can be dismissed if we assume pregnant mothers aren't drinking. The other thing we can discount is the long term health effects of alcohol consumption. Yes there are health ramifications, but as long as people are able to create healthy babies, what happens later on in life is less relevant to the question of making babies, which civilization needs in order to continue.
If this is alluding to unplanned pregnancies, that is almost unheard of nowadays due to access to IUDs/morning after pill/abortion.
Whether or not alcohol, or specifically hard alcohol, plays a material role in establishing relationships that otherwise would not happen is difficult to discern, but I don't see why an alcohol tax (or even just higher liquor taxes) would dissuade people. It only takes a few drinks to become "buzzed", so any tax would only be material to heavy drinkers.
I don't see how a government run liquor store limits abuse, and most seem to offer the same products as any other store (does it really make a difference above a certain proof?). And many states limit hours that alcohol is sold without having government run stores.
As far state run liquor stores dissuading alcoholism, Scandinavian countries state-run their liquor stores for that expressed reason. Their hours are intentionally bad, the products expensive and small. No 1.75 L handles of 80 proof vodka to be found. It's mostly effective, but it's also not New England where if you just drive for an hour or two, you can hit multiple states and jurisdictions with different blue laws, limiting the effectiveness of state run stores.
What state run stores, ostensibly force, is better adherence with the law. The corner shop where you've gone to for twenty years and are friends with the owner, is totally just gonna give you beer Sunday morning when it's illegal to do so, but record it in the system on Monday. A bit harder to do in a state run store with more oversight. Also, it's harder to import prohibited kinds of alcohol with said. oversight vs a privately run store. As with any law though, it's not 100% effective, but that's not a reason to not have a law.
New Hampshire liquor stores contribute over $150MM to community programs a year. [0]. They had an annual profit of $170MM in FY2023.
Also, New Hampshire does not have sales tax on certain goods and services. Hotel rooms and car rentals, for example, do have sales tax. And apparently, alcohol sold at the state alcohol stores.
https://www.revenue.nh.gov/taxes-glance/meals-rooms-rentals-...
I have to disagree. In a very real sense, the residents of a political entity are the stakeholders within that political boundary and, at least in a democratic (small 'd') society, those stakeholders are, in fact, the owner/shareholders of that political entity.
That's neither very profound nor much of an intellectual stretch. Although, apparently you disagree. Why is that?
That still doesn’t mean it makes sense to categorize government income as “profit” (for the purposes of this discussion trying to discern whether or not NH taxes alcohol).
Governments and businesses have (or are supposed to have) different priorities, and are (theoretically) structured so that in exchange for the government being given a monopoly on violence for those who don’t pay, the government (ideally) is working towards providing services that benefit all of society, for the long term.
The New Hampshire government’s website linked above even states:
> $146m Annual Contribution To The General Fund
What difference does it make if the tax is not separated out like alcohol taxes in most other states? The bottom line is New Hampshire could be selling alcohol for less, but it chooses not to in order to use the extra money to fund government services. That is a tax.
Nope. It's a dividend for the shareholders.