Pop a cold one

The great beer-and-wine debate, I trust most Hoosiers realize, is about people fighting for market share and sales territory, nothing more and nothing less:

More Indiana convenience stores are seeking permits to sell beer and wine - a move the store owners say will help them expand sales, but the package liquor industry says could essentially deregulate the sale of wine and beer.

So far this year, 142 convenience stores in Indiana sought grocery store permits that allow beer and wine sales. Only 46 stores sought beer and wine permits from the Indiana Alcohol and Tobacco Commission in 2005.

There is more to think about, if you look around a little. That Associated Press story I linked to is a shortened version of a story that originally appreared in the Muncie Star Press. The Star Press story had a couple of interesting things the AP version left out, including a request from our own Sen. Tom Wyss to change the relationship between the state and local ABC boards:

In a May letter to Brian Bosma, speaker of the Indiana House, state Sen. Thomas Wyss asked for study of state Alcohol and Tobacco Commission actions to override local Alcoholic Beverage Commission decisions.

Currently, local ABC boards make recommendations to the state ATC. Local actions -- including the Delaware County board's decision to deny liquor permits to Meijer and Ball State University -- have been overruled by the state.

Wyss suggested that legislators should consider changing "local board decisions from current recommendations only to final decisions subject to an appeal process." Wyss also suggested that excise officers should be removed from local boards and replaced with local citizens.

The AP also omitted this provocative comment from the end of the Muncie story: "I think the larger question could be, should anybody be allowed to sell cold beer?" (Emphasis mine). And the Indiana Business Journal had much the same story more than four months ago, which included a better explanation of the state's convoluted alcohol laws:

Anyone who tries to decipher Indiana's regulations for alcohol sales might welcome a stiff drink.

  The state offers 38 permit types. To request a permit, an applicant applies to the ATC, then appears before a hearing of a county alcoholic beverage board.

  That board passes a recommendation back to the commission, which makes the final call.

  Liquor store permits allow the sale of wine, sprits and cold beer. But package stores are permitted to sell only a handful of items beyond alcohol.

  The state set up this system in the 1930s to make the stores dependent on alcohol sales and therefore more apt to stay in line with regulations, Livengood said.

A couple of the questions that deserve further discussion: 1. What about the cold-beer sales? That would seem to cater to people who have to have a drink right now, right this minute, can't even wait to let the stuff chill for an hour. I realize the same urgency applies to some peole who are buying hard liquor and cheap wine, but the beer drinkers offer us a clue the others do not. 2. Though they are concerned mostly about their own well-being the package-liquor folks raise a valid point when they say young people cannot come in there but can go into concenience stores.

Finally, here's something that might bear on those two questions, a series of maps from 2002 showing drinking by state. Notice that in the map showing overall drinking rates, Indiana looks pretty good, landing in the next-to-the-bottom fifth of states. But when you look at a couple of individual categories -- binge drinking and drinking by those who are underage -- we look not so good. Don't know what weight legislators should give such statistics, but it's the kind of information I hope they at least consider.