Alcoholic Tirade

I think I might start writing a series of "Seriously, Utah is Weird" posts... there's so much fodder.

Here's my pick of the week:

Utah restaurant liquor licenses going, going . . .

I have a hard time swallowing why Utah has this quota system for liquor licenses based on population. You'd think they would welcome any new investment in the community in these difficult economic times...even if they want to serve...GASP!...alcohol. Why in the world would you let the state and not the market decide how many liquor licenses to issue in a given year? And there's only 1 full permit left for this fiscal year, and they expect 80 requests statewide. They only adjust the licenses based on the population growth once a year (the last official count was in June), so that's 79 potential business owners that aren't able to execute their business plan for their establishment as they would like to, and if they do open then their business may well suffer until they're able to get their liquor license.

Ugh...I could go on. But I won't. And I thought Kansas liquor laws were weird! Nope, Utah takes the gold medal on that one. Wonder what they would all think if they knew Ash & I shipped three cases of wine back from Napa this summer and didn't pay taxes on it. Oops! Hope the DABC isn't monitoring my computer.

-Emily :)