{"id":7351,"date":"2016-11-20T07:00:20","date_gmt":"2016-11-20T12:00:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/?p=7351"},"modified":"2016-11-21T11:55:41","modified_gmt":"2016-11-21T16:55:41","slug":"meet-the-new-liquor-monopoly","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/?p=7351","title":{"rendered":"Meet the New Liquor Monopoly"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Adam Pagnucco.\u00a0\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

Meet the New Liquor Monopoly.\u00a0 It\u2019s the same as the Old Liquor Monopoly, except with less accountability.<\/p>\n

OK, now that the applause is dying down, let\u2019s look at the details.\u00a0 The New Liquor Monopoly proposed by County Executive Ike Leggett<\/a> would be a quasi-governmental authority rather than a county department.\u00a0 It would have the same warehouse, the same equipment, the same trucks, the same ordering and billing systems, the same employees, the same front-line and middle management, the same union and \u2013 of course! \u2013 the same state-sanctioned monopoly status.\u00a0 This is \u201cchange\u201d that only a monopoly would love!<\/p>\n

But wait.\u00a0 There is one significant difference.\u00a0 Under the current system, the Executive Director of the Department of Liquor Control (DLC) is a department director who serves at the pleasure of the County Executive.\u00a0 Should the Executive become displeased with his or her performance, that person could be dismissed.\u00a0 The County Council has a role (at least hypothetically) in holding DLC accountable through its power to approve DLC\u2019s operating and capital budgets as well as any debt secured by liquor profits.<\/p>\n

Those sources of accountability disappear in the New Monopoly.\u00a0 The proposed authority would be governed by a Board, which would be nominated by the Executive and approved by the County Council, and that Board would hire a CEO. \u00a0The CEO would not report to the Executive. \u00a0The council would no longer have approval authority over the New Monopoly\u2019s operating or capital budgets.\u00a0 The New Monopoly would also have unfettered authority to issue debt.\u00a0 Here\u2019s a question, folks \u2013 what do you think will happen to liquor prices if the New Monopoly screws up and takes on too much debt?\u00a0 Pish posh – it\u2019s not like the existing Monopoly has ever screwed up, yeah?<\/p>\n

We know you can barely contain your excitement.\u00a0 Here is the County Executive\u2019s statement so you can absorb all the dirty details!<\/p>\n

\"exec-statement-1\"<\/p>\n

\"exec-statement-2\"\"exec-statement-3\"At first glance, the New Monopoly is little different from the Old Monopoly.\u00a0 From top to bottom, it is the same entity in terms of capital, labor and processes.\u00a0 But this new beast could be much more dangerous than the old one.\u00a0 It is neither accountable to its customers nor to elected officials.\u00a0 In fact, it is accountable to no one at all.<\/p>\n

Folks, it\u2019s time for brutal honesty: our county government has failed us.\u00a0 The liquor monopoly\u2019s problems have been apparent since the first year of the current County Executive\u2019s first term<\/a>.\u00a0 For nine long years, the county did nothing as the monopoly continued to get worse, culminating in the epic 2015 New Year\u2019s Eve disaster<\/a>.\u00a0 Thousands of consumers and licensees signed a petition to End the Monopoly<\/a> and residents even voted for term limits in part due to fury over DLC.\u00a0 And what do we get?\u00a0 A proposal for Endless, Unaccountable Monopoly.<\/p>\n

We, the residents and business owners of this county, have not been heard.\u00a0 Our demands for freedom have been subjugated to the crushing burden of alcohol totalitarianism.\u00a0 There is only one thing left to do.<\/p>\n

Vote for candidates who will End the Monopoly in the next election.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Adam Pagnucco.\u00a0\u00a0 Meet the New Liquor Monopoly.\u00a0 It\u2019s the same as the Old Liquor Monopoly, except with less accountability. OK, now that the applause is dying down, let\u2019s look at the details.\u00a0 The New Liquor Monopoly proposed by County Executive Ike Leggett would be a quasi-governmental authority rather than a county department.\u00a0 It would … Continue reading Meet the New Liquor Monopoly<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[151,1449],"tags":[1545,1439,1724],"class_list":["post-7351","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-adam-pagnucco","category-department-of-liquor-control","tag-adam-pagnucco","tag-department-of-liquor-control","tag-liquor-monopoly"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4mKJE-1Uz","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7351","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7351"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7351\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7358,"href":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7351\/revisions\/7358"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7351"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7351"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7351"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}