I don’t know if the Washington State Liquor Control Board is stupid, overconfident, or has access to some sort of internal polling data I haven’t seen yet, but judging from this new state store preparing to open on Rainier Avenue South (in the strip mall with Safeway and Ross), folks there don’t seem to be planning for the state store system to be abolished next month by Initiative 1183. Hmm.
Right next to my house. Squee!
You wanna talk about omens?
I saw an anti-1183 ad last night that featured a typical MADD woman who blames mini-mart alcohol for killing her toddler son. They showed a picture of the boy: he has my first & last name (not a common one), and has the same hair & eyes I did at that age.
Am I already dead?
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000X6S…
The bureaucracy must go on, until an order is issued not to – and even that takes a lot of paperwork.
Kinda along Catalina’s line, this store was probably planned long ago, and whether it’s government or business, you don’t change your plans until the situation changes. And until Election Day, the situation is completely unchanged. (Now, if they’re smart, they have a contingency plan for implementing I-1183.)
Nice troll, but you don’t really have a good point to make with this, Goldy.
Matt @4: Can’t troll my own blog. And… um… exactly what “point” do think I was trying to make? Honestly. I’m curious.
@5 – Where’d you get the notion you can’t troll your own blog? Charles has been doing it for years.
A nice logo could raise their profile and increase revenue. Or they could, you know, somehow arrange for a whole lot more outlets…
A logo would only promote the demon of liquor. Besides, there’s far too many stores already. There should only be one per county, and they should only be open 9am-5pm.
Or so all those serious police and teary-eyed mothers on the commercials say.
@8 – Or maybe it should be run more like the department of licensing. You’ll need to double the fluorescence of the lights, bring in some more discolored linoleum, and make everybody stand in line so they can give their order to a surly state worker who has to go into the back room to retrieve the wrong kind of whiskey.
I’m thinking maybe a separate line for different kinds of booze. “Sir, this is the gin line. If you want vermouth, you’ll have to come back between Monday and Wednesday and wait in the vermouth line over there. Make sure you bring two forms of ID in addition to your vermouth license. Do you at least have your gin application filled out?”
Who needs vermouth? It’s enough to know that there’s a bottle of it somewhere. You can nod in the direction of that imagined bottle while shaking your martini.
@ 4, yes, you can troll your own blog. All you have to do post something with the aim of generating lots of posts (as opposed to an honest discussion).
And when I say “you don’t really have a point to make,” I’m saying this post is without one. When you have no point, how the hell am I supposed to know what point you were trying to make?
I’m going to guess that this is evidence that you’re not really a morning person. Or maybe you haven’t been getting enough sleep lately, what with the “Will the cops crack down in the middle of the night” posts. You really don’t seem to have any focus right now.
Good lord, “can’t troll my own blog” is the most self-evidently untrue thing since Dan’s famous “I never picked on fatties”. Comedy gold.
And MacCrocodile, if anyone can get the Kafka back into our liquor stores it is you. Go!
MacCrocodile dear, when I was just a little Catalina that’s how the state-run liquor stores in Iowa were operated – except for the fluorescent lighting. That wasn’t invented yet.
One of my earliest memories is of being set on the counter in the liquor store while my dad bought a bottle of something. I’m certain that both the presence of a child, and that child being on the counter, were strictly against the rules, but Iowa was never as uptight as Washington State about such things.
Iowa got rid of the stores twenty years ago, yet civilization has managed to limp along. But privatization is undoubtedly what lead to gay marriage.
While the opposition campaign is blatantly lying in order to advance their agenda (the commercial referenced above includes the lady pointing out that the driver purchased his last bit of alcohol at a convenience store, which means it would have been beer or wine, and as such she’s now shilling for the people who killed her son, based on her own calculation of whom to blame), I’ll be surprised if this initiative passes.
The pro campaign has been erratic, while the opposition has shown laser-like focus – alcohol = bad.
But to the point – no, Goldy, I doubt this has anything to do with internal polling numbers.
We just got a new store at Crossroads as well.
Here’s a thought: maybe with a few more stores out there, they think people will quit bitching about having to drive an extra quarter-mile out of their way to get sauced.
@15: It’s not just a question of inconvenience. It’s the simple fact that the state has no right to be the sole retailer for a legal product, whether it be liquor or toilet paper. It’s a matter of principle of what we should expect in a free society with free enterprise.
Goldy,
Great photo. Redundant much?
@ 16, there is something to be said for @ 15’s point. I’m sure many people who support privatization are motivated mainly by convenience, and only secondarily by notions of whether or not the state should be the sole retailer.
When I lived in Washington, I bemoaned the state store as much as anyone. My biggest beef was the hours (only one store that I know of, the one out on Lake City Way, was open til 10; some were open til 9, many just 8); my second was location (I was never within simple walking distance of a store*, something NOT true of any home I’ve had in Denver, save when I was growing up and underage); and the third was selection (although I’ve never been a big hard liquor guy, so I could live with the limitations).
These combined to make me believe that the state shouldn’t be in the business of liquor sales, but a few more stores, with later hours and better selection, would have gone a long way to mollify me.
* There was one across the street from where I worked downtown, but I didn’t often feel like going in there after work to fight the crowds.
Matt, I grew up in New Mexico and we used to have liquor stores with drive-thru windows. Now that’s true civilization! Make an errand for booze in your bath robe!
They never do, or can. Opening s are planned months sometimes a year in advance.
Phoebe, there’s a liquor store with a drive-through window about 100 feet away from me as I write this. I never use it, because duh, it’s 100 feet away from me, but it’s there. Open 9 a.m. to midnight, too.
There’s been drive-through liquor stores in Colorado for as long as I can remember, too. I live about 1/2 mile from one, but there are three others in easy walking distance. None of them have a great selection of beer, wine or hard liquor, because I live in a more lower-middle class area, but go just a mile further and I’ve got the store with the selection.
Oh just pass this, and the job of stopping teens from drinking falls on their parents.
Sign brought to you by the Department of Redundancy Department.
@15,
The WSLCB has been making changes to how they do business: opening stores that look like specialty stores (but actually stock the same old shit), extending hours, increasing locations, offering samples, because they see the writing on the wall and are running scared.
@25 – Running scared, responding to community criticism. Potato, potato.
@26,
You think no one’s criticized them before this? They now know liquor will be privatized eventually. They did exactly jack shit to improve accessibility and listen to complaints until privatization became a legitimate threat.
Maybe the resounding defeat of the previous two initiatives, in spite of what you and everyone else tries to project on it, means the overwhelming majority of Washingtonians are HAPPY WITH THE CURRENT SYSTEM and have NO INTEREST in changing it. Maybe…