Comments

1
"You can put in a special order, but the state has no sense of timeliness. It could come within weeks or it could come within months. I've had special orders never show up. In any other sector, that kind of service is just unacceptable," said one bar owner, who wished to remain nameless. "Frankly, it's easier to smuggle the brands you want from out of state than wait for the liquor control board."

....my money's on Meinert.
2
Individual customers also have trouble with special orders, not just restaurants. I have placed special orders for particular kinds of brandy that have taken a year to fill (or were never filled at all). By contrast, those same brandies are for sale in the grocery store in other states.

This post illustrates exactly the main point why the state needs to be out of the liquor business and why these liquor initiatives ought to pass. It's ridiculous to have our liquor selection constrained by fairly arbitrary whims of a regulator instead of by I want, or want to try out.
3
Pete Hanning is absolutely correct, and Brian Smith is absolutely full of it. And what about me? Why should a private individual have to order a freaking CASE of something that sounds interesting (but might turn out not to be)? A case of a high-end Scotch can cost a thousand bucks.

Not to mention that there are many products that you can't even special-order. They're simply not available in WA State, period. When I walk into Lee's Discount Liquors in Las Vegas, or frigging Heathrow Airport, I want to weep, seeing all the amazing stuff that the WSLCB has never heard of.

This is the biggest problem with WSLCB: not their retail stores, but their incompetent, Soviet Planning Department distribution. The WSLCB had to be dragged kicking and screaming even into the pathetic state they're in now -- it wasn't that long ago you couldn't even browse the bottles -- you had to ask for your brand, and bottlers would pay bribes to have their brand of gin or vodka be the ONE brand on display behind the counter.

But what the hell, Fleischmann's is good enough, right? It's just DEMON LIKKER. Why do you care what kind it is, you're just going to COMMIT A SIN with it, aren't you?
4
Just because the system isn't flawed doesn't mean you blow a $500 million to $1 billion hole in the State Budget and let loose hordes of rapists, murderers, and arsonists on the population just because you want cheap booze.

Cause that's what these initiatives do.
5
@4 You're sweet. Alarmist, and adorable.
6
@1:

Possible, since both were at the Nightlife meeting last night. However, there were several other bar owners in attendance, so it's not exactly a sure bet.
7
Were just trying not to fund your tunnel Will
8
@3 forget a case of high end scotch. You know what our favorite drink to sometimes sip in the evening is, for both of us? Stupid Bacardi Big Apple (we have odd palates; I like straight Jack or a decent Scotch, but we both like Big Apple). The state decided to stop carrying it at the end I think of 2006. I bought up basically every leftover bottle--a handful--at the 2nd Avenue downtown, both the stores on/off Broadway, and the one in Fremont. No one else had any, over most of 2007-2008. I think I got the last bottles off of the one by the Stranger office last summer. That's it. Gone.

Or I can order case like you said for $300 (?) dollars, which we'd never drink fast enough. Plus, ick.

So do I have to order this possibly illegally if I want to sip from 1-3 bottles per year, because the state decided not to carry it? I'm sure I can't be the only person or half of a couple that just prefers a vaguely obscure drink.
9
@4, "hordes of rapists, murderers, and arsonists", eh?
10
@9 Seattle circa 2014 will be a wasteland of drunks glassing each other in a 24x7 rolling barfight that ebbs and flows like a drunken tide; the unlucky few to fall will be insta-sodomized right on the corner of Pike & 3rd before they're drenched in Everclear and set on fire. I can't wait to see what the DSA has to say about that!
11
@10, sounds like a Friday night in Belltown.

While capitalism is a dirty word here on Slog, if you like your drinks, vote the liquor board out of business. Any commercial distributor (with competitors) who acted like the state wouldn't make payroll after the first week.
12
The selection in our liquor stores is laughable, but most of us have been here too long and we don't notice.

Show a Texan the shelves of one of our stores and he/she'd just laugh.
13
@9 Will's saying that the huge hole in the state budget will result in school closures.
14
@9 Will is saying that the budget gap caused by these initiatives would result in school closures, Fnarf.
15
On the other hand, it's not like this stuff goes bad.

Please wait...

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