A new push to bring free-market reforms to North Carolina’s liquor laws is underfoot, led by a pro-business group.
Free Our Spirits launched its reform effort this week, aimed at putting pressure on state lawmakers to take a second look at whether strict government control of liquor sales is still the best way to handle it.
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While there have been a few minor reforms in recent years — most notably the “brunch bill” that allowed restaurants to sell drinks before noon on Sundays — the main framework of the state’s liquor laws have remained relatively unchanged since Prohibition ended nearly a century ago.
Supporters of getting rid of the ABC system and opening it up to private competition have an unorthodox ally at the legislature in Sen. Jim Burgin, R-Harnett, a devout Baptist who doesn’t drink at all.
He filed a bill last week to privatize all liquor sales in North Carolina.
“I don’t drink, and I would prefer people not drink,” Burgin said in an interview. “I don’t want people to get drunk and go out and drive, hurt people, or anything. But I have always had a problem with the state being involved in the alcohol business.”
Beside the capitalist argument for privatization, there’s also a matter of state funding, Burgin said: “We have a bunch of money that’s tied up in these [ABC] stores and the warehouses that we will never get out if we don’t privatize,” he said. “I think there’s potentially hundreds of millions if not billions of dollars that could be gotten out of that system, and put into education and other areas.”
The state ABC Commission, however, strongly disputes that characterization.
"The North Carolina ABC system operates without state funding or appropriation from the General Assembly," ABC spokesman Jeff Strickland said. "The ABC system generates hundreds of millions of dollars annually at the local and state levels. In the most recent fiscal year, the total amount of revenue distributed statewide was $697,000,639."
Political opposition to change
There has long been support for the current government-run system among state lawmakers of both parties.
Critics of government control say letting the state control the supply and prices of liquor has led to higher prices and fewer options for consumers. That applies to regular people as well as any restaurant, bar or hotel in the state.
“The hotel restaurant and hospitality industry suffers mightily under these antiquated laws,” Joyce Sullivan, who’s leading the new campaign, said in an interview. “We need a nice, universal, wholesale distribution system for the hospitality industry. And, quite honestly, more options for choice. Our choices are limited. Supply seems to be limited. There are brands that everybody tries to find, but yet they're not here in North Carolina.”
Burgin’s privatization bill, Senate Bill 938, has so far not picked up any fellow Republican senators as co-sponsors. And GOP leadership assigned it to the Rules Committee, which is typically where doomed bills are sent to die without any attention from the legislature.
However, he and Sullivan each said the time is ripe to at least have the debate over whether — or how far — to pursue any potential reforms.
“We really just want to begin the conversation to see how we can reform our current laws, that date back to 1937,”Sullivan said. “I think that's the big piece here. North Carolina has changed dramatically since 1937, yet our spirits division has not kept up. It is not in the 21st Century.”