Tennessee Whine

The other day I made a trip to the Package Store where I buy my wine. For some reason there is some fucked up law that requires a liquor store in Tennessee to refer to itself as a package store, in some obviously archaic nonsense that should have been wiped off the books years ago.

As I approached the store, I noticed that there was a new sign in the window. This sign read as followed:

Dear Consumers,

We have been fucking you in the ass now for many years. We offer shoddy service, a crappy looking store, and the inconvenience of our location. But thankfully, state law gives you no choice but to buy your wine here, so fuck you. Oh and by the way, we are going to ass rape you on the price too, because we are a monopoly.

Have a good day, bitch.

Okay so I'm lying about the sign. It didn't really say that. But the sign was there and it did ask me to go to some web site and sign up to oppose Tennessee changing the law on liquor sales.

Effectively they were asking me as the consumer to advocate for their shitty over-priced store, and ask our politicians to block legislation that would allow my local supermarket to sell wine as they do in civilized parts of the world.

Now Tennessee has some of the stupidest and most draconian liquor laws in the country. They require waitresses and waiters who make minimum wage to get certified to sell alcohol. They have weird laws that allow the government to punish a minimum wage worker who accidentally sell alcohol to a minor. And they also have all kinds of stupid consumer laws:

• You may buy beer in a gas station or grocery store.
• You may not buy beer in certain counties before noon on Sunday.
• You may buy beer in a grocery store, but not wine.
• You may buy ale in a liquor store, but not beer or lager.
• You may buy Everclear that contains 95% alcohol, but you cannot buy coke to dilute it or a plastic cup to drink it out of in a liquor store.
• You can buy margarita mix in a grocery store, and mix it with the finest tequila purchased in a liquor store. However, if you buy margarita mix in a package store it will be tainted with the legally required 1% alcohol content.
• You can buy a corkscrew in a grocery store, but not in a liquor store.

The bottom line here is that this is 2009. 33 states (and D.C.) already offer wine in grocery stores, and no evidence has been produced that link this to underage drinking or drunk driving.

I am sick of having to go to a special store to buy my wine. I don't want to shuffle out of a 'package store' with some dirty brown bag containing my purchases.

I'd like to be able to go to a grocery store 24/7 and pick up some wine, some cheese, perhaps a little pasta. But instead the state requires me to plan ahead and purchase my wine at a time of their choosing in a special store that provides over priced products due to a monopoly stranglehold they have.

Tennessee voted Republican in the last election. A clear vote for small government, less regulation on businesses, less red tape, a free market. And all the other bullshit they might lead you to believe.

In any case, a vote of Republican is clearly a vote for less regulation and less government interference.

If Walmart wishes to sell wine in their stores, there is no reason why they should not. They do in 33 other states without a problem. They already sell other alcoholic beverages such as beer. So there is simply no good argument for maintaining these out dated laws.

Eight states that border Tennessee have already given up this archaic vestige of prohibition. Time to take another step towards being a 21st century state. Just for once, let's not be the idiot in the room who has to wait until everyone else is doing something before finally figuring it out.

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