Are liquor stores really essential businesses?

Phishfry

Phishfry

Virginia and North Carolina both have State run liquor store monopolies. No private stores can sell liquor.
Now North Carolina and Virginia have gone into lock-down ordering businesses like hair salons and bowling alleys to close.
Yet both states exempted their liquor stores.
Am I crazy to think this is so wrong?
Closing private businesses but allowing their own monopolies to remain open to the public seems ignorant.
I think that state mandated closed businesses have a legitimate beef here. Perhaps a legal dispute.

We need to make sure that people stay healthy and not drunk during a state of emergency.
The liquor stores close during hurricanes but stay open during a medical emergency. That is ludicrous.

My feeling is that we should also stop the sales of cigarettes. Last thing we need during a medical crisis is people polluting their lungs.

What do you think?
 
Here barbers are closed. Next month I have a Robinson Crusoe look.
Here everything is allowed to be opened if the main activity of what is sold is to be eaten or drunk.
 
My first impression was lile yours.
But alcoholic persons need alcohol and if all store are closed, they probably so something stupid to find their needs.
No ?
 
How many people have died of Covid-19? Thousands.
How many of suicide and domestic violence? Many more thousands.
If lack of alcohol causes even a relatively small number of people to become dangerous to self or others, that will make the crisis even worse.

The trick is to retain a balance between society sort of functioning (where public safety, distribution of essentials, and a semblance of normality are preserved, for the benefit of mental health) while minimizing the amount of virus transmission. This requires sometimes odd decisions.

I think when analyzing the response to the crisis, we will eventually find that many more people were killed by the attempts to prevent the spread of the pandemic than by the pandemic itself. As an example, in India there are serious concerns about famine: that country doesn't have the kind of food stockpiles to make it through an extended shutdown. In a country where a very significant fraction of the population are still in the industries that support agriculture (such as tractor repair, electrical parts to keep food processing going, trucking, ...), a full shutdown is simply not possible.

Even here in Silicon Valley, a significant fraction of industry will have to restart relatively soon. Sure, programmers can work from home. But as an example, my wife works for a company that makes cancer treatment hardware. Right now, a lot of non-urgent cancer treatment is deferred: people will have chemo or radiation treatment in a month, not right now. But at some point, deferring that no longer works. At that point, cancer treatment will require consumables (as an example, specialized chemotherapy drugs, not what my wife makes but a similar example). For a few weeks or months, hospitals will have enough stockpiles of those consumables. But within a few weeks, manufacturing of that stuff will have to restart, or else people will die of cancer. Exactly the same applies to heart problems (stents, artificial valves), broken limbs (a friend of ours is a mechanical engineer in a company that makes titanium knees and elbows), and so on. Once more and more people HAVE TO go to work to save lives, more and more of the society's infrastructure will have to be put back in place. For example, families will need schools or childcare again, so the parents can go work and save lives. That means more bus drivers, school janitors, and so on.
 
joplass said:
does that mean Joe Shmoe can't just come to VA or NC and open up a liquor store?
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Yes that is exactly what it means. Beer is sold at many retail locations but the state government owns all the liquor stores.
You will also find state owned liquor stores in Pennsylvania. Another "commonwealth" state.

My gripe is that the government is protecting their own monopoly from closing while closing other businesses as 'non-essential'.
I fail to see how liquor is essential.

I have several bottles on a shelf but do not indulge much myself. More for my guests.

Hakaba said:
But alcoholic persons need alcohol and if all store are closed, they probably so something stupid to find their needs.
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Yes but I fail to find that argument persuasive. Liquor stores close at night and they used to close on Sundays.
If you are an alcoholic and need liquor then you should stock up.

We are experiencing a grocery store system failure in my area.
We have a run on bread, eggs, milk and fresh meats. The very staples that many live on.

Consider the farmer who raises chickens. He has a coup which holds 40K birds. They harvest every 3 months.
He cannot produce more chickens on a whim. He is on a set timetable and has to allow his crop to mature.
So our food supply system is not well equipped for surges in demand.

This whole crisis had made me consider raising some of my own foodstock.
It feels like hurricane preparedness (where everyone stocks up) but the supply system shock is lasting much longer.
 
Phishfry In Venezuela people started to build iron cages to lock up some relatives. Some people would get by in normal times, even without meds. Some don't. But in that situation, many would then be off their drugs (legal or others) and go raving mad. Howling at the moon and throwing stuff at street gangs is not a survival strategy. And that might come to all of us. I'm just happy I don't have important meds and for those family members who need it we have some weeks reserve.

And the tax from the sales might matter in that decision, too.
 
Here in Canada, liquor stores are certainly essential businesses. You would not want a riot, right?

Seriously, why the heck can so many Americans only perceive a good drink as "sin" or a drug?
 
ralphbsz said:
How many people have died of Covid-19? Thousands.
How many of suicide and domestic violence? Many more thousands.
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You cannot compare them with Covid-19 which is the new deases and we do not have any drugs agait it. You can compare with Spanish Flu.
 
The dangers from Covid-19 are vastly over exaggerated. In the UK 15,000 people die from flu every year and no one bats an eyelid.
So far 800 people have died from this virus and the country has come to a standstill. 99% of people infected by the virus recover within a short period. Of those that die almost all have some underlying health problem which effects their immune system. Those problems include obesity (apparently 30% of Americans are obese), heart disease, lung disease, diabetes and high blood pressure.

What very few people realise is that George Soros and Bill Gates orchestrated this mass panic in order to make big money out of it.

https://politicalmoonshine.com/2020...gates-billionaires-coronavirus-and-the-w-h-o/
https://civilianintelligencenetwork...gates-partner-with-china-on-coronavirus-drug/

Also Bill Gates controls WHO - the organisation that declared this to be a pandemic and has everyone in the world running around like headless chickens.

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9uWriZEC8BQ&t=4s

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IRJpP83MqNs&t=1244s

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-727K585amo
 
balanga said:
T
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Try to read what scientist, virologist, epidemiologist around the wotrd say about Covid19 and you will have better view on the disease. All other are speculations.
BTW I never seen in my life and I am not young that so many people died in one day in Italy and I am not in panic but I know something about deaseses which I learned on my study of pharmacy/pharmachology and long work in genetics research.
 
blackhaz said:
How long since you've last been to the States? Lots and lots of very good craft beer there.
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I'm not going to go there. The squeeze with TSA&Friends is not worth the juice. That's a pity imho as there are a lot of nice people and places over there. If only going over there wasn't like checking into club fed...

Last Time I was in Canada I got a sixpack at a local store. The label said "rich & flavourful" and it was such a dishwater.
 
fernandel said:
BTW I never seen in my life and I am bot young that so many people died in one day in Italy
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Sometimes it's worth reading behind the headlines - it looks like most of Italy's Covid-19 victims are really victims of other underlying illnesses and Italy compiles its statistics differently.

www.bloomberg.com

99% of Those Who Died From Virus Had Other Illness, Italy Says

More than 99% of Italy’s coronavirus fatalities were people who suffered from previous medical conditions, according to a study by the country’s national health authority.
www.bloomberg.com www.bloomberg.com

As far as pandemics go, this is is no where near as bad as it is being portrayed. It has been marketed as "We're all going to die" and people have been brainwashed into being terrified, yet the number of casualties does not merit the over exposure. In 1919 there was a real pandemic when 50,000,000 people died. In a normal year 1.5 million people die of pnuemonia and no one even notices. Could that be because no one stands to gain from pneumonia but certain people have invested quite a bit of time and money to take advantage of the scaremongering behind Covid-19.
 
recluce said:
Seriously, why the heck can so many Americans only perceive a good drink as "sin" or a drug?
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I don't. My problem is commerce. The state controls the liquor stores and is looking out for their own intrests while closing other businesses and bankrupting them.
The state has no business determining winners and losers. They should be ensuring an level playing field. Not rigging the system.

I do agree on stopping liquor sales during natural emergencies, like hurricanes and I think the same philosophy should be followed during a medical emergency.
Liquor reduces you bodies immune system at a time when we have a medical emergency.
www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

Alcohol and the Immune System

www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
 
Crivens said:
recluce You have tried american beer, have you? For any german that stuff is an abomination. ;)
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The problem with the US (and Canada and Australia) is that it has some very good beer. Blackhaz already mentioned the craft beer industry, and I think there is way more variety from small breweries in places like Oregon, California and Massachusetts than in Germany. On the other hand, the generic beer that's sold in huge quantities is pretty awful. Everyone knows the joke, right? Why is "Miller Lite" like making love in a canoe? Ha ha.

But I might need to stock up my scotch reserve. For medical reasons, you know.
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I hate scotch and bourbon. I think they taste like distilled rat poison. On the other hand, I love a good brandy or cognac. And I know people who like scotch. Which proves "de gustibus non est disputandum".
 
I like to read a good conspiracy theory. That does not mean I believe them all.
CNN had NY governor Cuomo on and he stated that they had a shortage of ventilators and hospitals were having to share them between patients. Then I read that NY had a bunch of ventilators in storage from the Federal Government. Cuomo stated that the ventilators were being stockpiled for the peak of the pandemic.
So which one is it? Short on ventilators or hoarding them?
Politicians are the last people to believe and CNN seems to have a bias.
They are not reporting on events but manufacturing news to fit their narrative just like conspiracy theories.
 
Phishfry said:
I like to read a good conspiracy theory. That does not mean I believe them all.
CNN had NY governor Cuomo on and he stated that they had a shortage of ventilators and hospitals were having to share them between patients. Then I read that NY had a bunch of ventilators in storage from the Federal Government. Cuomo stated that the ventilators were being stockpiled for the peak of the pandemic.
So which one is it? Short on ventilators or hoarding them?
Politicians are the last people to believe and CNN seems to have a bias.
They are not reporting on events but manufacturing news to fit their narrative just like conspiracy theories.
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https://www.spiegel.de/internationa...ssible-a-549d1e18-8c21-45f1-846f-cf5ca254b008
 
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