On Tuesday night, November 8 2011, Washington state passed Bill I-1183 which deregulates wine distribution and allows grocery stores to sell Liquor. I personally feel this is a big win for the state of Washington. Although this initiatives was backed my about $22 million dollars in Costco funding, which many automatically asume is a bad thing, it really isn’t. Costco did this for a reason, yes, because they know they will make those millions back by selling cheap mass produced wine and spirits. On the flip side though, it opens up a whole world of possibilities for small, independent or special interest stores that can now import or provide small batch product to the public which was not possible before because everything had to go through long bureaucratic processes and often required minimum sales volumes in order to be accepted by the state controlled system. (Very much like British Columbia here in Canada).
Although this makes me a little jealous that our friendly Washington neighbours to the south now have a better, cheaper, more flexible and user friendly system than we do, it also makes me hopeful that we will be able to change our antiquated system that harkens back to the days of prohibition, literally.
Here’s some more brief detail from the Seattle Times.
