Airing of grievances

[petrel800]

And Bourbon Dick Pics . . . just cause there is bourbon in your crotch shot doesn't make it OK for you to post it on the internet.

[dcbt]

I have some grievances, but it's not Festivus yet.  I'll at least wait until the aluminum pole is up.

[whiskeyagonzo]

Here's a new grievance that's been happening all too frequently. People are now selling open bottles. I have no words.

[Richnimrod]

18 minutes ago, whiskeyagonzo said:

Here's a new grievance that's been happening all too frequently. People are now selling open bottles. I have no words.

What idiot(s) are buying these "open bottles" of which you speak?      I can't fathom that there would be a market for open liquor.    ...But, maybe I'm ascribing too much sense to the general public.

[whiskeyagonzo]

What idiot(s) are buying these "open bottles" of which you speak?      I can't fathom that there would be a market for open liquor.    ...But, maybe I'm ascribing too much sense to the general public.

Just idiots on Facespace. I can't give you their names because when I see it, I try and block it out. Berben has made people dumb

[tanstaafl2]

On ‎3‎/‎27‎/‎2017 at 8:19 PM, DeepCover said:

I'd like to hear the rationale. It makes little sense to me.

 

My understanding is that at least part of it is that the smaller guys want the protection from bigger stores, especially national or regional chains that might have the clout to negotiate big purchases direct from distillers/brands that the smaller guy could never compete with. Smaller store owners in Georgia like the 2 store maximum per state rule for similar reasons so that chains like Total Wine can't open up a dozen or more stores and essentially wipe out the smaller neighborhood stores which, if the owner (or at least some of the staff) is personable and at least halfway knowledgeable about whiskey/spirits, is generally my preferred type of store. Even with TW having only 2 stores it can be a struggle for a small store to operate against their buying power but at least if it isn't in your neighborhood the smaller store has more of a chance.

[namadio]

1 hour ago, tanstaafl2 said:

 

My understanding is that at least part of it is that the smaller guys want the protection from bigger stores, especially national or regional chains that might have the clout to negotiate big purchases direct from distillers/brands that the smaller guy could never compete with. Smaller store owners in Georgia like the 2 store maximum per state rule for similar reasons so that chains like Total Wine can't open up a dozen or more stores and essentially wipe out the smaller neighborhood stores which, if the owner (or at least some of the staff) is personable and at least halfway knowledgeable about whiskey/spirits, is generally my preferred type of store. Even with TW having only 2 stores it can be a struggle for a small store to operate against their buying power but at least if it isn't in your neighborhood the smaller store has more of a chance.

That doesn't sound like capitalism ;D

[tanstaafl2]

Just now, namadio said:

That doesn't sound like capitalism ;D

 

Indeed it is not. More like protectionism! Such is the dirty side of the business.

 

Well, a lot of sides of the liquor business seem to be somewhat less than clean. Down right Byzantine, in fact.

[TexanBrad]

That doesn't sound like capitalism ;D

NY retailers have railed against efforts to allow grocery stores to sell wine alongside the beer that's already there, and in turn allow liquor/wine stores to sell beer. They trot out the "it'll kill all the small mom and pop stores" argument, along with the "it'll endanger kids" and "it'll promote alcoholism" stories every time.

While the other two are exceedingly dumb arguments, it's actually the mom and pop shop argument that bothers me most. Coming of age in that state and being overly interested in wine (before my Bourbon revelation), I visited plenty of shops to see if I could find wine "dusties". Most of them provided no value to the consumer other than existing. They were too small to offer good prices (like convenience stores), they had staff or owners that didn't have more than a cursory knowledge about their products (like convenience stores), and didn't strive to offer anything special or out of the ordinary that would differentiate them from the dozen other shops within a decent drive (like convenience stores).

Those stores aren't the shops we usually frequent (unless dusty hunting) because they contribute nothing of value to the market, and in their defense, there's no pressure for them to do so. Why up your game when the marketplace is heavily gated to people who want to make it more competitive? I'd shed 0 tears for the convenience oriented stores that bit it in such a change, and I'd frequent the ones that provided a high level of service and/or specialty selection that differentiated them from the Total Wine or Bevmo down the street, just as I do now.

As a parallel, if your state outlawed supermarkets and made people buy licenses to sell foods, how many of the places that sprung up to sell food would look like your gas station store? Would you cry over those ping away when Wegmans changed the law and reopened? Would you stop frequenting the patisserie across town just because Wegmans sells donuts? Obviously not. Capitalism works best in the least restrictive market (that still provides safety and avoids most negative externalities) possible.


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[Don Birnam]

20 hours ago, tanstaafl2 said:

 

 More like protectionism! 

 

 

Let me assume the role of Beelzebub's attorney.

In some ways the three tier system protects the interests of the retailer. If retailers were allowed to buy directly from the producer, said producer could charge varying rates for their products, hold back product, or simply not sell to a retailer because that store sold a competitors brands. B-F could say 'We have enough 'brands' and 'styles' in our catalog you do not need to sell Diageo, Campari, Suntory, etc. product'.  I for one don't want to drive to various 'sponsored' stores get get a few 'brands'.

And the abolishment of the three tier system wouldn't happen anyway, your government wants it's taxes, and three cuts is better than two. Even liquor sold at distillery gift shops, while never leaving the premises, was purchased from a distributor, and taxes were paid.

 

Okay, Lucifer is on line two...I have to take this.

[smokinjoe]

Nothing stops the distributor from doing the same, now.  For that matter, same goes for distilleries.

[Don Birnam]

How so?

A distributor, even one owned by a producer (shhhhh, it happens) distributes other producers product. That means selling brand B while being owned by brand S still profits brand S.

 

Alright, must be going, I am arguing a case in Ring 8, Room 3.

 

[smokinjoe]

Your hypothetical was that a distillery could basically allocate product to favored/preferred stores in an open market.  I proffered that the same can hypothetically be done now under current setup.  That's all.  

[Charlutz]

1 hour ago, Don Birnam said:

And the abolishment of the three tier system wouldn't happen anyway, your government wants it's taxes, and three cuts is better than two.

 

Great points about protecting stores with distributors. Small shops already have trouble competing against giants who can offer cheap prices and make it up on larger volume with trimmer profit margin percentages. If the small stores also had to pay higher prices to get inventory from distillers because they had less purchasing power, they'd go down quickly. 

 

And there are four levels of taxes... income tax on each of the three tiers plus sales tax on the customer.

 

Also to mention the certain states like my own Maryland that charge 6% sales tax on everything else and 9% on alcohol. Internet ordering is not a great option to bypass sales tax here as Maryland has some funky alcohol shopping laws. It can be done, but there's no rhyme or reason and some sellers won't offer it 

[TexanBrad]

 
Great points about protecting stores with distributors. Small shops already have trouble competing against giants who can offer cheap prices and make it up on larger volume with trimmer profit margin percentages. If the small stores also had to pay higher prices to get inventory from distillers because they had less purchasing power, they'd go down quickly. 
 
And there are four levels of taxes... income tax on each of the three tiers plus sales tax on the customer.
 
Also to mention the certain states like my own Maryland that charge 6% sales tax on everything else and 9% on alcohol. Internet ordering is not a great option to bypass sales tax here as Maryland has some funky alcohol shopping laws. It can be done, but there's no rhyme or reason and some sellers won't offer it 

It doesn't seem all that tough to calc how much you're making on your booze taxes, blow up the three tier system and tack the same (or more!) amount of tax on the retail seller to keep it revenue neutral or positive.

And in many states, your wholesalers already give different prices to different stores, as well as refuse to sell X brand to other stores. Take Texas for example, Specs and Twins both have massive purchasing power and regularly score discounts on major brands from distributors that your small shops couldn't dream of. Specs also has worked out a deal where Republic National won't distribute Sogevinus wine brands to any other retailer, despite substantial interest as Sogevinus controls some pretty common Port producers. None of this has squashed the little shops, like Houston Wine Merchant, who provide wayyyyy better knowledge and service than you find at most Specs.


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[namadio]

On 4/1/2017 at 11:15 AM, TexanBrad said:

 

NY retailers have railed against efforts to allow grocery stores to sell wine alongside the beer that's already there, and in turn allow liquor/wine stores to sell beer. They trot out the "it'll kill all the small mom and pop stores" argument, along with the "it'll endanger kids" and "it'll promote alcoholism" stories every time.

While the other two are exceedingly dumb arguments, it's actually the mom and pop shop argument that bothers me most. Coming of age in that state and being overly interested in wine (before my Bourbon revelation), I visited plenty of shops to see if I could find wine "dusties". Most of them provided no value to the consumer other than existing. They were too small to offer good prices (like convenience stores), they had staff or owners that didn't have more than a cursory knowledge about their products (like convenience stores), and didn't strive to offer anything special or out of the ordinary that would differentiate them from the dozen other shops within a decent drive (like convenience stores).

Those stores aren't the shops we usually frequent (unless dusty hunting) because they contribute nothing of value to the market, and in their defense, there's no pressure for them to do so. Why up your game when the marketplace is heavily gated to people who want to make it more competitive? I'd shed 0 tears for the convenience oriented stores that bit it in such a change, and I'd frequent the ones that provided a high level of service and/or specialty selection that differentiated them from the Total Wine or Bevmo down the street, just as I do now.

As a parallel, if your state outlawed supermarkets and made people buy licenses to sell foods, how many of the places that sprung up to sell food would look like your gas station store? Would you cry over those ping away when Wegmans changed the law and reopened? Would you stop frequenting the patisserie across town just because Wegmans sells donuts? Obviously not. Capitalism works best in the least restrictive market (that still provides safety and avoids most negative externalities) possible.


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Same arguments seem to be used anytime the question of selling alcohol on sundaes is raised in Indiana.  The only loser is the consumer.

[TexanBrad]

Same arguments seem to be used anytime the question of selling alcohol on sundaes is raised in Indiana.  The only loser is the consumer.

I love alcohol on my Sundaes! It's one of the few things that can improve an already nearly perfect food [emoji12].


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[PaulO]

I've always thought - no Sunday sales stinks of state established religion.

Protecting "small mom and pop" = straw man analogy.

The ghetto is full of dumpy little liquor stores.  I bet many of the people that live there would prefer a nice grocery store they could get to easily.

[musekatcher]

6 hours ago, PaulO said:

I've always thought - no Sunday sales stinks of state established religion.

Protecting "small mom and pop" = straw man analogy.

The ghetto is full of dumpy little liquor stores.  I bet many of the people that live there would prefer a nice grocery store they could get to easily.

 

No Sunday sales, and other blue laws pre-date the US, and still in force around the world - interesting remnant from reformation and temperance movements.   I'm not sure I see a greater or lesser value in grocery liquor sales, unless its to protect us from hooch-buying "people of walmart" while collecting groceries

[dcbt]

8 hours ago, PaulO said:

I've always thought - no Sunday sales stinks of state established religion.

 

This was discussed recently, and liquor stores seem to prefer it this way.  Opening on Sundays would just transfer some Saturday and Monday sales to Sunday, so revenues don't really increase but OpEx would because of being open.

[Flyfish]

On 3/31/2017 at 3:15 PM, namadio said:

That doesn't sound like capitalism ;D

We were in the Louisville Costco just two days after a new TW opened just down the street. The Costco Liquor manager told us he needed to renegotiate with the distilleries and distributor because TW was already killing him on price and selection. Then he gave us the address of the new TW because he didn't have what we came in for.  Looking to compete while still serving the customers' needs. Is that capitalism?

[TexanBrad]

We were in the Louisville Costco just two days after a new TW opened just down the street. The Costco Liquor manager told us he needed to renegotiate with the distilleries and distributor because TW was already killing him on price and selection. Then he gave us the address of the new TW because he didn't have what we came in for.  Looking to compete while still serving the customers' needs. Is that capitalism?

You could argue that it is, he's attempting to differentiate himself from the market by providing good customer service to make up for his poorer selection and pricing than his competition. If he has what you're looking for in the future, he's more likely to make a sale, even at a higher price than his competition, than if he tried to foist some plonk on you as a substitute on this trip.

Think about your mechanic. He may not be the cheapest you can find, but he always works you in when you need something done on your truck. He just doesn't work on your wife's Audi or BMW or whatever. And yet you keep going back.


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[smokinjoe]

4 hours ago, Flyfish said:

...Then he gave us the address of the new TW because he didn't have what we came in for.  Looking to compete while still serving the customers' needs. Is that capitalism?

Obviously, this guy was impacted by watching "Miracle on 34th St." every year...  

[PaulO]

6 hours ago, dcbt said:

This was discussed recently, and liquor stores seem to prefer it this way.  Opening on Sundays would just transfer some Saturday and Monday sales to Sunday, so revenues don't really increase but OpEx would because of being open.

Yeah, I've heard that on the local news too.  Me, I'm probably not the typical customer.  I go to liquor stores simply because they have items not usually found in the grocery or drug store.

I don't think a business should have to be open on Sunday - if the people that run it don't want to open (like Chick Fillet).  On the other hand, I know of some small restaurants that were open all week-end, but closed Monday or Tuesday.

I would love it if someone in the state legilature stood up and said, "We don't sell liquor on Sunday (because it's bad).  We shouldn't sell tobacco or allow any form of lottery or gambling on Sunday either". Ha-ha

[Flyfish]

7 hours ago, TexanBrad said:

 

You could argue that it is, he's attempting to differentiate himself from the market by providing good customer service to make up for his poorer selection and pricing than his competition. If he has what you're looking for in the future, he's more likely to make a sale, even at a higher price than his competition, than if he tried to foist some plonk on you as a substitute on this trip.

Think about your mechanic. He may not be the cheapest you can find, but he always works you in when you need something done on your truck. He just doesn't work on your wife's Audi or BMW or whatever. And yet you keep going back.


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"Is that capitalism?" was a rhetorical question. In true capitalism, success is the reward you get for satisfying your customer. It seems to me that too many of us equate "capitalism" with "maximizing profits and screwing the competition." So, yes, we will go back to that Costco not because we want to pay more but we have always been treated well even when they didn't have what we were looking for at the time. Besides, I need to fill up with gas and taste some free samples in the store. ("Gas" is for the RV, not from the free samples.)