Monday, October 29, 2007

License Oligopoly, Part 3: "What Local Control?"

We've mentioned the "license-oligopoly" bunch before.

Those are the folks who want the State (or some subdivision thereof) to protect their incomes.

We forgot to mention the Tavern League of Wisconsin, arguably the grand-daddy of piggies.

The Tavern League purchased a Legislative majority years ago--and that majority has done whatever the Tavern League wants, beginning with arrogating powers to the State that should belong to municipalities.

In effect, the State of Wisconsin tells local governments how many establishments may serve liquor, and what KIND of establishments those may be.

Nice, hey? Saves the Tavern League folks a lot of money--they only have to purchase the majorities in the Legislature and Senate, rather than run all over the State purchasing majorities of aldermen and supervisors.

...the Tavern League of Wisconsin will oppose the exemption to liquor license limits, said Peter Madland, executive director of the organization.

"Historically we've always been opposed to anything that creates more licenses," he said.


"Obviously, the more licenses there are, the more it decreases the value of existing licenses."

Sure wouldn't want more competitors. That might actually require better customer service, or something.

Memo to Legislators: dump the State controls altogether. You shouldn't have them.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I was going to blog this but you did more eloquently.

You forget though, that the Morons in Madistan have this overwhelming desire to regulate EVERYTHING.

I agree though, the law should be dumped...the sooner the better.