The bill would have made Mississippi the 44th state in the country to allow consumers to purchase wine and have it shipped directly to their house. Currently in Mississippi, a control state, you are limited to what the state has in stock, limiting your freedom to choose the wine you prefer.
If ABC doesn’t have it available, you don’t have the option without jumping through traditional government hoops. All to acquire a bottle of wine, something that’s been legal at the national level for 90 years.
But on deadline day, the bill came to the floor and was defeated 32-13. Just thirteen Republicans voted for the bill. A majority of Republicans voted no, as did the entire Democratic caucus.
Just a few days later, the legislature went home, schools were closed, and a large chunk of the state was shut down because of the coronavirus pandemic. Mississippians were staying in, and using technology to work from home, order groceries, and have food from their favorite restaurant delivered to their front door.
Almost overnight, we realized how important technology was, how it impacts virtually every area of our life, and how limitations generally come from government, not the lack of entrepreneurs. A glaring example, the inability to have alcohol delivered to your house in Mississippi.
If you wanted wine delivered to your house from a winery in California, or if you just wanted something from a local liquor store to be delivered via an app like Drizly, you are out of luck. After the direct shipment vote in the Senate failed, it looked like alcohol freedom was never coming to Mississippi. But the pandemic changed things. Soon, the Department of Revenue was repealing regulations.
DOR began allowing liquor stores to take orders online or over the phone, while providing curbside delivery rather than having to enter the retail establishment. Then as restaurants were forced to close their dining halls, DOR allowed customers to purchase a sealed bottle of wine with their to-go order. And finally, DOR began allowing residents of Leisure and Recreation Districts to order a mixed drink with their to-go order and take it home. All of these small changes were previously illegal, as ridiculous as that sounds.
All of a sudden, regulations that many of us have been saying were unnecessary as they simply limit consumer freedom were being lifted during an emergency so consumers could have more freedoms. We hear about “health and safety” often when listening to proponents of regulations, but we can safely write that during an actual health crisis, alcohol prohibitions don’t contribute to our health or safety.
If you didn’t want to go into a crowded store, it was quite the opposite. One could argue the prohibition on alcohol delivery makes us less safe. Or if you’re having a party at your house (while following social distancing guidelines, of course), you could also argue that it’s safer to have a new bottle of wine delivered rather than someone taking their chances on the road.
We know current prohibitions don’t stem from health and safety concerns, but from the protectionist tendencies that are built by the current government policies. It’s not inherently safer to purchase alcohol from a liquor store than a grocery store, but liquor stores have an obvious financial incentive, created by the government, to maintain their monopoly. At the same time, there are plenty of limitations on what liquor stores can sell that also serve no purpose.
But this is all overshadowed by the fact that all alcohol runs through a state warehouse, not a traditional distributor. And guess what would happen if we allowed Walmart or Kroger to sell wine? We wouldn’t have enough room at the warehouse and taxpayers would have to fund a bigger facility. Or so we are told.
I don’t know about you, but I don’t feel any safer by having the state handle alcohol. Nor are our roads safer because you can't buy alcohol from a grocery store or on Sundays (or Christmas Day).
Rather, we need to back away from overburdensome regulations and prohibition-inspired laws. While this will just be a footnote from the pandemic, when it comes to alcohol policy, we’ve learned to ease off protectionist monopolies and trust consumers and technology to allow the market to work.