Friday, March 12, 2010

Logic Fail on Liquor Sales


In a surprise to no one, a proposal to allow Sunday alcohol sales in CT died in committee this week. A story in the Hartford Courant lays out the sides of the story, including boohoo-ing by liquor store owners about how being forced to stay open another day would cause them to go under because they wouldn't make any additional money in sales and they'd have to pay their employees more - possibly even overtime hours!

But having wallowed in the dregs of menial employment ourselves, we happen to know that business owners are very clever and have lots of ways of not paying people overtime - like not employing them on a full-time basis in the first place. We have also seen restaurants and bakeries resort to outlandish tactics like not staying open every day of the week, or closing early on certain days, in spite of the legality of food sales seven days a week, round the clock. They are not forced to be open just because, say, McDonald's is.

Also mentioned is some uptight representative from Wallingford, Mary Mushinsky, who somehow managed to interject concerns about underage drinking into the debate. What this has to do with Sundays, the world may never know. Young folks will drink any old day they can.

The Connecticut Police Chiefs Association added their two cents, suggesting that another day of in-state alcohol sales might lead to more drinking and driving, which is of course ridiculous, because liquor store purchases are generally consumed in private homes as opposed to bars that people drive to, and routinely drive home drunk from. LOL - it's so crazy how bars let you get all drunk, and they serve you that "last call" drink and then kick you out like five minutes later! If they are really worried about drinking and driving, the crackdown should begin in the parking lot outside the bar.

We don't own a tragic small business, liquor or otherwise, in CT, so we can't pretend to understand the full economics of the situation. But we've sometimes had the privilege of Sundays off and consider Sunday nights prime social time (HBO original series dates, anyone?), and we can't count the number of times we might have picked up a bottle of something if we had that option. We're not alcoholics so we haven't done the whole "drive to Massachusetts for booze" thing. Not since we were teenagers anyway.

1 comment:

  1. dude! i totally live here too.
    sweet blog, blog girl. i like it. very up to date on what's poppin.

    ReplyDelete