The 18th Amendment, effective starting in 1920, outlawed the manufacture, sale or transportation of “intoxicating liquors” within the United States of America. It was such a bad idea that the 21st Amendment, ratified 13 years later, didn’t just repeal Prohibition but essentially washed the federal government’s hands of booze and flung all regulation of it into the laps of the individual states forever.
“The transportation or importation into any State, Territory, or Possession of the United States for delivery or use therein of intoxicating liquors, in violation of the laws thereof, is hereby prohibited,” the repeal amendment says, giving no guidance at all on what those state laws should look like.
As a result, the states — now 50 of them — have a patchwork of laws that may delight or frustrate new residents depending on their attitudes and what they were accustomed to.
Arkansas’ liquor laws, long fairly static, started to relax a couple of decades ago, despite the liquor store owners’ powerful lobbying efforts. Dry counties got damper and then started to take the full plunge. Wine — first from Arkansas wineries, then from small wineries outside the state — crept into grocery stores.
The latest debate in the General Assembly, over Wal-Mart’s desire to expand its wine selection, is the latest reminder that piecemealing laws that must mesh together is a recipe for unintended consequences. It’s hard to feel too sorry for the liquor store owners — they protected themselves legislatively by making it ridiculously hard for customers in dry counties to get more convenient access to alcohol. But neither do they deserve to have the value of their investments undermined just because the biggest retailer in the world wants more of the action.
Like the U.S. Tax Code, Arkansas’ liquor laws need an overhaul that recognizes changing attitudes and shopping habits and economic realities of a product that, as the 18th Amendment taught us, will not be denied.