November 4 2014 Election: Wine Referendum

Right now it is not legal for grocery stores in Tennessee to sell wine. Beer, yes, but not wine. I suspect this is a hold-over from prohibition. Judging by the signs and employees asking me to sign petitions, grocery stores would apparently like this to change. I'm sure the liquor stores would prefer it to not.

I do not oppose others' right to drink. I have no desire to make it legally difficult for adults to obtain alcohol, nor is it against my religious beliefs to drink. Dependency on alcohol, drinking to the point of losing control, drinking so that you put others in danger, those I would hold to be immoral. But not drinking in itself.

That said, I don't drink. I have had various alcohol at different times, but have liked almost none of it. I prefer having full command of my senses, and I've seen a ruined life or two that included a lot of alcohol. There's apparently nothing in it for me. So if I'm being asked to vote, "Should grocery stores carry wine?" I find there to be no moral dimension to this question; it becomes a matter of practicality.

Now, I know market theory. This is talking about undoing a pointless government intervention in the market. But I don't hold that an unregulated market is necessarily better than a regulated one. I judge policy based on its observed impact, not on presumptions and theory, unless there's genuinely no data.

What happens if grocery stores carry wine? That means some business that was going to liquor stores will now go to grocery stores instead. We're basically moving money from one group to another, when it was artificially shunted to the first group in the first place. More competition, which will theoretically result in a more efficient allocation of resources, maximization of profit, invisible hand, yadda. None of that has any direct impact on me or mine, positive or negative.

You know what will impact me? Finite shelf space. If grocery stores start carrying wine, they have to stop carrying something else. What will they give up? Obviously the things they make the least money on. I have no idea what those things are. Do any of my (three) readers? My bet is that they'll stop carrying the exact things I buy the most of. Just because the universe is perverse like that.

What else will impact me? We'll be rid of all those irritating "RED WHITE AND FOOD" signs everywhere. I'd like that. I prefer my grocers to not try to suck me into their politicking.

So I'll probably be voting against this resolution, but not for any grand reasons that will make the world a better place for anyone else. Just for my own tiny selfish purposes.