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Comment by utnick | Hacker News Reader

Funny how similar it is to the alcohol situation. Its illegal for a brewery to sell beer directly to the public in Texas, they have to go through a middleman (distributor) that doesn't really provide value.

Although in the last legislative session the rules got relaxed somewhat ( especially for brewpubs ), its still pretty similar.

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This isn't just a car issue, it is a "protecting local business" issue. Every state has some industries that they mandate a middle man. They either do it through licensing or just straight up saying the manufacture cannot sell direct.

Shallow articles like the link don't really help the situation. We really need to start looking at removing the government from business models when there is no actual public safety aspect(1). This is a much wider problem.

1) I do believe Florida is one of the state that licenses interior designers on the theory poor interior design could kill someone. This too should be revoked as it is among the stupidest safety concerns ever.

Not to nitpick but that law can go so long as interior decorators aren't going around moving walls in houses.

Moving walls actually requires a construction permit since it is generally not an interior decorator's job to move walls.

Hard to tell if you're trolling or showing what wrong-headed arguments are used by the industry to justify anti-competive laws.

> Its illegal for a brewery to sell beer directly to the public in Texas, they have to go through a middleman (distributor) that doesn't really provide value.

This is true in most states. It isn't a 'Texas' problem, it's a 'USA' problem.

Very true, although it finally is getting addressed ever so slowly.

Funny how you single out Texas for doing this. How is this different from other states?

Texas, the state being discussed here, is generally touted as a free-market success story, without having an actual free market.

EDIT: Typo, correct 'marker' to 'market'.

The difference is that Texas isn't actively writing these laws today. States like Cali and Mass are passing new laws to create barriers to entry.

The car dealer, alcohol and sex laws are all from a long time ago. The alcohol and sex laws are being changed rapidly here.

If only place Texas politics gets really weird is with education and schoolbooks where a small, vocal group concentrates its effort.

I'm in Ohio and I can (and do) buy directly from the brewery, from single bottles to full barrels.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three-tier_(alcohol_distributio...

Which, of course, does not apply legally since March 22, 2012[1] and has not been enforced for as long as I can remember.

[1] http://www.com.ohio.gov/liqr/docs/liqr_HB243highlights2012.p...

If you talk to a Pennsylvanian about it, chances are they will tell you about how they have "Communist liquor" (and yes, the "communist" word there has all the negative connotations you might expect from such a rural state).

I suppose Pennsylvania does not quite have that same 'exceptionalist' attitude as Texas does.

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