The knee-jerk, government-shouldn’t-be-in-the-booze-business crowd will have plenty to drink to when Costco’s $22 million Initiative 1183 wins tonight—and it will win, by a comfortable margin—but you booze-hounds are missing the bigger picture: Washington’s initiative process is now officially open to the highest corporate bidder.
Yeah, I know, it’s been heading in that direction since Tim Eyman first made a lucrative profession of it back in the late 1990s, but I-1183 and last year’s Coke & Pepsi sponsored I-1107 mark a turning point in our history when large corporations finally started spending tens of millions of dollars in pursuit of hundreds of millions of dollars in returns. It’s great for stockholders, but will ultimately prove to be a disaster for the citizens of Washington state, when corporate interests with unlimited resources dive into the business of directly marketing to voters self-serving policies that could never survive a deliberative legislative process.
But, you know, I’m rational enough to admit defeat. And since we have neither the political will nor skill to reform the initiative process, from here on out it will only get worse. Yet another way in which Washington, politically, is totally fucked.
So enjoy the hundreds of millions of extra dollars Costco will ultimately earn from selling jugs of Kirkland brand vodka in Washington state, Mr. Sinegal, but don’t you ever again pretend that you are some sort of responsible corporate citizen, because you’re not. And you’ll never get another dime of my business again.
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What’s sad is that the leg could have opened sales to big stores and charged them a huge fee to do so. Costco has been willing to spend what, 30-40 million on this so far? How about a 100 million upfront fee and whatever percent profit the states stores made on gross sales? We could have put a solid dent in the budget gap and at the same time allowed specialty stores at a much reduced fee.
But as usual Olympia dithered and now we’ll get it with none of that.
@52 that’s pretty much the moral of the story, not Goldy’s absurd booze-bad nonsense. Initiative systems themselves, like we have, are of no legitimate use. But if we’re stuck with them, then our legislators need to be willing to go to Goddamn war on our behalf over and because of them on a daily basis. Genteel and lazy politics need to be executed.
Goldy, you are full of shit in your comment #38. Many posts (including mine) made exactly the point that the real issue is the political process, not the particulars of this inititive. You are ignoring those comments, becuase as usual, you ignore what you don’t agree with. You seem to specialize in having dogfights with straw-men in your comment threads, while ignoring stronger comments.
I completely agree with you that our initititvie process is horrible and fucked. Boycotting and blaming Costco for using the legal framework that we the people of Washington put into place in the first place is crazy, especially since Costco is a pretty decent corporate citizen.
It was a hard vote for me, but in the end I found the “No on 1183” people every bit as distasteful, and I like cheap booze.
If Goldy never shops at Costco again, does this mean he doesn’t buy Coke or Pepsi products anymore, either?
“The knee-jerk, government-shouldn’t-be-in-the-booze-business crowd will have plenty to drink to when Costco’s $22 million Initiative 1183 wins tonight”
And in response to this knee jerk reaction, is yet another knee jerk reaction? Seriously Goldy, Costco offers paying wages to all its employees, something thats an annoyance to the shareholders. As much as I dont like Costco flooding millions into this, the CEO is not a corperate shill and you are a moron for suggesting that we boycott them when theres really no other alternative to buy bulk products. You are asking people to spend even more of their money because you have a (rather large) bug up your butt.
Should we direct our anger and frustration at Costco for playing the game, or should we direct it at our government for allowing this to happen?
Maybe I should buy some stock in Costco. You know, play the game, too.
@5: “Goldy, I expect you to keep on top of the youth-drinking and DUI stats you used to scare people into voting no, and reporting honestly about what they show, even (and especially) if they do NOT increase.”
Ha! At least this would be a bright note on the stupidest reasons people demanded that we vote no, FOR THE CHILDREN.
@38 I get it, though you could have added a little more context to help frame the issue. I’ve ripped you for your supposed anti-alcohol stance before, but I understand what you are saying here.
Costco challenged the WSLCB’s mandatory markup & licensed distributor policy about a decade ago, trying to get volume discounts and use their own supply chains. They took the case to the SCOTUS, and lost. The legal advice they (correctly) received was to try to change WA state law regarding liquor. They failed to buy off the state legislature, though they certainly tried. The next, and possibly final, option was the initiative. They appear to be winning that one.
What angers Goldy is that the initiative process was a Progressive change that, like the 17th Amendment, was intended to prevent monied interests from buying legislators. Now those monied interests are just buying the people’s votes, which have turned out to be quite a bargain.
@38:
If you’re going to call people stupid because they point out that you make no sense, you should probably re-read twice to make sure you’re not making a stupid mistake in the process. It looks really dumb, like the “get a brain, morans” guy. Wait, was that you?
PS: is it possible for someone “to [sic] stupid to get it” to intentionally miss the point? How do you intentionally miss something you’re “to stupid” to get?
“… corporate interests with unlimited resources dive into the business of directly marketing to voters self-serving policies that could never survive a deliberative legislative process.”
Exactly. You’re completely right. Ignore these moronic commenters.
Goldy,
I warned you when you came over here from the ‘Ass. The Slog commentariate is dominated by an extremely self-obsessed narcissistic group. What they want more than anything is access to what they want when they want it. And fuck everything else. They laugh with a superior aire at anyone who acts on any other motivation.
@61: OH NO! A typo in one of the thousands of words Goldy writes everyday! More than enough justification to dismiss everything he writes!
@63
And some of us have begged and pleaded for evidence that states with more liberalized alcohol access laws are doing worse off than Washington across a variety of measurable metrics provided by neutral parties. We get nothing.
This uppity “progressive except the stuff I think is morally inappropriate!” shit is obnoxious. In for a penny, in for a pound.
@64. Apparently you ARE too stupid to get the point. A typo? Sure. But when one is on such a moral high horse as you are, it is always best to make sure ones grammar is a correct as it can be.
You are an inconsistent whiner Goldy. Admit your defeat on this.
@61 ” It looks really dumb, like the “get a brain, morans” guy. Wait, was that you?”
At last years Tea Party Tax Day protest in Westlake, that was me. Its actually not that hard to create a costume like that.
…is as correct… gah.
The truth is the Olympia D’s wouldn’t touch this for years to avoid taking on their state employee union donors. Opening up the system for some private dollars would have made the state more money and kept them in the game. They chose to stick with the union money and now lost. So, union money buying influence in Olympia is OK, but Costco putting money behind an intitiative is bad. Whatever Goldy.
@64: Well, you have to admit a typo (if you actually know to / too) when calling whole swaths of people stupid makes you look… stupid.
And I dismiss most of what you write because you take emotional stakes in issues and then work backwards to semi-rational arguments while screeching stridently and insulting anyone who disagrees with you. Tell me again how Costco’s 1183 money is so damnable and merits a boycott, while the liquor wholesalers’ anti-1183 money doesn’t merit a mention or a boycott? Any chance it has to do with your preferred outcome on 1183?
You’re a hack. Sorry, but it’s true. One day you may grow into a reasonable writer capable of measured analysis, and you’ll look back on stuff like this and cringe. Or maybe you’ll stay a hack, forever tilting at windmills, completely convinced that your emotional positions are a substitute for rational argument. Whatever turns you on.
George Carlin had it right: the public sucks, fuck hope! When you have selfish ignorant population who vote like sheep based on 30 TV ads, then we end up as corporate slaves. They must laugh their asses off, slaves that volunteer to put on the shackles themselves. Because they believed those shackles were really free bracelets.
Goldy, your comment in #64 just proves my point that you choose to address peripheral arguments, and ignore substantive criticisms. Like any comment thread, there is a lot of shit and noise here, but there are also quite a lot of solid comments, which you are completely ignoring. You are like a guy who only likes to fight people weaker than you are. After working over a wimp, you roar and flex.
Just do what I do people, stop reading Goldy’s posts. Life is too short to waste on his nonsense.
@38 Fuck you — your argument was totally illogical, so you have to attack the commenters who pointed that out.
If your point is that the initiative process was screwed up then why boycott Costco? It didn’t create the process, and it’s not the first company to pour money into an initiative.
Will you be boycotting all the liquor distributors who funded the anti-1183 movement, too? Or are they OK because they are on the losing side?
@74 – *highfive*
@63,
Which is why I voted NO. What *I* want, not what some peckerhead grocery clerk thinks I want. If this passes, the availability of non-standard brands of liquor will go WAY DOWN.
I hate the initiative process. Hate hate hate.
As long as my 5 year old can run down to Safeway and get me a fifth of scotch when I run out that’s all I ask.
@77: Which is why there are so many more varieties of tequila, rum, and brandy available in Washington than California, where pecker-head clerks pick inventory.
Oh, wait. Tell me again why I’m always bringing back unusual brands that aren’t available in WA when I travel to California?
I hope BevMo opens up a few giant stores after this
@77, totally ignoring that this opens up a new market for liquor-only retail stores. Like the state runs, only bigger, with more convenient hours, and not beholden to a pecker-head bureaucrat to decide what brands to carry.
I welcome Costco’s involvement in this initiative. I’m tired of the piss-poor selection at state-run liquor stores, not to mention the inconvenient hours and locations. As far as I can tell, the state of Washington is getting a fair shake in this deal.
It’s cool, Goldy – I’ll shop at CostCo enough for the both of us.
What’s worse than direct democracy? Direct democracy controlled by corporations.
No, The results of the election can’t POSSIBLY be a result of the public’s authentic understanding and expressed interest in the initiative. Could they?
If something passes, that Goldy deems to be subversion of The Desired Nanny State, then to only POSSIBLE conclusion is that those wily business owners and shareholders, and their interests, have perverted the course of Liberalism’s Natural Good.
Only by commercially-bought deceit could the bleating masses be so misguided.
Only more intrusive government will save us from us.
Alarm! To the tax code! We must find more resources for the defense of us, from us!
Yes it’s got nothing to do with this being problematic from a free market standpoint. Corporate interests after all these years of trying may have pierced the window with this, but at least I’m glad that it’s one that gets the state out of the booze buying business, an enterprise they had no place being in the first place.
Exactly @83. This is what I have been saying to people who think that access to quality liquor will be hindered. I just don’t buy it. What about PCC? Metropolitan Market or Whole Foods? We live in one of the best areas in the nation for high quality super markets for christ’s sake! Even the beer/wine selection at QFC is one of the most diverse that I have ever come across in a super market. Anyone who says differently is just spoiled and used to Seattle standards. And just to picture it: 10,000 sq feet is about the size or a little bit more of a baseball diamond. Big, but not inordinately enormous.
Keep it coming guys… I get paid by the comment.
Sorry, Goldy. I didn’t vote “yes” on 1183 because of Costco (big liquor distributors put a lot of money in on the other side as well), but because IT’S FUCKING STUPID TO REQUIRE LIQUOR TO BE SOLD IN STATE-RUN STORES.
Period. Nobody bought my vote. Nobody influenced it. Having travelled and lived in many other states without state-run stores (that’s MOST STATES) and seen it work out just fine, I vote for the same SANITY here.
Yikes, Goldy! You are acting pretty childish, it’s not a good look for you.
aka same as ever
@ 90, that would explain all the Goldy groupies here.
@ 89, if I still lived there, I would have voted NO because of the 10,000 square foot requirement. If you spend some time in a state that doesn’t control sales in this fashion, it’s because really good, high quality selection shops take up much less space. (Check out a quality wine shop sometime – thank god you guys can have that, at least – and imagine if such a place could also specialize in premium spirits, especially those from the now-rising small-batch distillery trend.)
Also, where in Seattle’s dense neighborhoods are these 10,000 square foot stores supposed to open? This gives the QFC and Safeway in your area permission to stock the hard stuff – and, granted, the stores you mention are likely to stock good stuff, IF they’re that big. (The Metropolitan Market on top of Queen Anne probably isn’t 10,000 sq ft; neither is the PCC near Green Lake.) I suppose you can build some more mixed-use developments and leave the retail area as one single space, like the one with the QFC on Mercer and 5th, but I thought everyone was getting tired of those things.
For Washington’s sake, I hope that someone addresses that rule and fixes it. I think Fnarf’s prediction has a greater chance of being on target if it’s not.
@92: Is there any other look from Goldy? If Mudede is incoherence incarnate, Goldy is petulance personified.
@95- I’m from NY, so I am familiar with mom and pop shops. I also shop in local wine shops, support local distillers, drink only the best spirits and drink almost exclusively local or national micro-brews. Of course I do, I live in Seattle. There is a market for this stuff. We have good taste here, and so does Denver, which I lived in for a year, and San Francisco, which I have also lived in for a a time. All this is meant to say that the people who want craft spirits are going to have someone selling it to them. The 10,000 sq ft requirement while not ideal, allows for pretty much all of our lovely supermarkets who have a penchant for selling high quality goods the opportunity to have high quality spirits. And I have no reason to doubt that they will, since they have been selling me high quality brews and wine for the 5 years that I have spent in Seattle. Get the freaking government out of it, create more revenue for the state, and let us see what the market decides to sell to the endlessly snobby (picky?) Seattle market.
It’s quite simple — Goldy hates voters when they vote against his politics, loves them when they vote his way. Costco didn’t buy the election anymore than Index Newspapers, LLC pays for Goldy to conduct his opera of simianesque obscenities in a specific key and to an exact beat. Free will is a pain in the butt, Goldy, but it’s what makes this society the best among the alternatives.
The average Trader joe’s is 10k sq. ft. Take a look at their corporate website about store sizes. You could fit most trader joes into the met. market on queen anne.
Honestly, the problem is not with Washington’s iniative process. Blame it on Citizens United. Corporations are people, my friend! Expecting Costco not to spend lots of money on this initiative is just ridiculous. It’s like expecting my dog not to lift his leg on the tree…it’s just what he *does*. Costco is not a bad corporate citizen. In my shitty hometown in Central Washington, they are one of the few employers who pay living wages plus benefits to their employees. They sure as hell don’t have to, especially considering that lots of those jobs are telephone jobs that could easily be shipped to India (you know, like Microsoft does?). Corporations aren’t inherently evil just because they’re corporations. Now, the WSLCB…. they’re inherently evil.
Oh and Fnarf…. just wait until you enter the beautiful land of Total Wine. You’ll take it all back. Google it.
Oh, and Goldy, if NO ONE gets your point, perhaps you’re not quite cut out for journalism.
@95, the 10,000 sq ft rule was explicitly put there to stop the opposition commercials from running ads saying “OMGZ HARD LIQUOR AT THE GAS STATION WHERE EL-HABIB WILL SELL TO TEENAGERS BECAUSE HE IS A TERRORIST”. They ran those ads anyway. I would fully expect the legislature to create a “boutique” store exemption to this rule in the future for specific licensees.
@90 – nice to see the Stranger is at least admitting their new editorial policy places trolling ahead of anything resembling professional journalism.
If you’re comfortable being the left-wing’s answer to redstate, great. But don’t go crying/whining when you suddenly find people aren’t returning your calls.
@100 Actually the rule in Citizens United has been the case in Washington for a long long time. That decisions did not effect our local elections.