THE PANDEMIC has some businesses, especially restaurants, scrambling to make ends meet. And business owners fighting bankruptcy are trying desperately to innovate to keep the lights on until the pandemic ends and things return to normal.
With that understanding, business needs all the tools available at its disposal. That might mean relaxing or tweaking some regulations. Close enough for government work doesn’t always make it in the real world.
One group of businesses fighting hard to survive: liquor stores. And they’re doing better than they would have, thanks to the Alcoholic Beverage Control Division emergency rule change that allows for alcohol delivery.
You can get pizza delivered (assuming you live in town). Why not a pack of beer as well?
A piece of legislation is working its way through the Arkansas House and Senate that would keep the rule, even after Gov. Hutchinson’s health emergency declaration ends.
“The Arkansas Senate on Wednesday narrowly approved a bill that would allow liquor stores to continue home delivery service even after the state’s public health emergency ends. The Senate voted 19-9 to send Senate Bill 32 by Sen. Jane English (R-North Little Rock) to the House for further action. Eighteen votes are required to approve a bill in the 35-member Senate, so it cleared the Senate with one vote to spare. Six senators didn’t vote on the bill; another senator was excused,” the papers say.
That’s one-third of the race complete. All that’s left now is the House and the governor’s signature.
Plenty of legislation passes one chamber and dies in the other. But this is a bill that should make it through both.
It only impacts wet counties, so folks like Sen. Larry Teague (D-Nashville), who voted against the bill and lives in a dry county, don’t have anything to worry about.
But for responsible private citizens who want to drink a beer or two while watching the game on TV, there shouldn’t be any issues with them getting drinks delivered to the house.
There are 764 liquor stores with retail liquor permits in the state’s 44 wet counties, according to the state Department of Finance and Administration. If each one of those stores employs five people, that’s almost 4,000 jobs.
In the difficult economic times of a pandemic, and even afterward when the emergency declaration comes to an end, those businesses should be allowed to innovate responsibly for the sake of those jobs and the state’s economy.
The ABC already has a working system for getting correct information on who the buyer is at the residence and who the deliverer would be at the store. So don’t think high school kids could call the store with a fake name and age and get booze delivered. There are precautions in place.
The bill should pass. Businesses need the room to innovate.