State-Supported Thievery in the Alcohol Marketplace

Posted by Tom Wark on Apr 7, 2014

You think about the issue a lot. You involve yourself in the issue. Some call you an authority. You write about the issue at some length. Then someone, who has not has your opportunity to give the issue the kind of thought you have absolutely nails it…in two words.

That’s what I saw happen as I read in the Orlando Sentinel about the ongoing legislative struggle in Florida between craft brewers (your friends, wineries) and proponents of keeping the three-tier system intact at all costs. The keen analysis of the situation in Florida came from one Mr. John Cheek.

Beer giants and distributors, a cadre of small brewers and lawmakers are waging a battle over control of a burgeoning craft-brew industry now largely operating under Prohibition-era rules….It’s largely a struggle over Florida’s complex regulation of beer sales. The rules are meant to control monopolies, protect the marketplace and prevent problems dating back to the 1920s when the nation was drowning in cheap booze.

But John Cheek, founder of Orlando Brewing Co., has another name for it.

“It’s thievery,” he said.

Mr. Cheek is right…and in fact he’s dead on right. The state-mandated three-tier system is straight up thievery. Legalized kickbacks. A corrupt system justified and defended by liars, thieves and their bag men.

Read what is being done to craft brewer in Florida and it’s hard to disagree that Mr. Cheeks offers a keen analysis of the state-mandated three-tier system.