Should alcohol be sold by anybody or just the government?

[Deathknightish]

Some countries allow selling of alcohol through normal, private stores, while some have stores owned by the state such as Norway with Vinmonopolet or Sweden with Systembolaget, but which way is the best in your opinion?

As a Swede, I can see both cons and pros to our way of handling it. First of all, alcohol below 3,5% is allowed to be sold at any store, so it's just alcohol above 3,5% that only the state is allowed to sell. Anyways;

Pros:
Extremely knowledgable staff. Of course with private stores and companies you can find specialized ones in other countries as well that know their shit, but in general when I go to a store in Spain, America or Germany, the staff haven't been anywhere near as knowledgable. They just want to sell you booze and earn a profit.

Bigger supply, more alternatives. The selection is almost unlimited, especially in the bigger cities, and the good thing is that if you can't find what you are after, the store will put in an order of what you want. They only ask of you to buy an entire batch. So you can't only buy one bottle, you need to buy the entire box.

Pricing. In general it's cheaper. It's not THAT much cheaper when it comes to lower-grade alcohol, or the major brands, but they usually have some deal with the finer breweries and wineries that allows for the price to be lower than what you would find in other countries, even with our insanely high alcohol taxes.

Higher entry-level quality. You don't really find the terrible low-quality booze, like the vodka that tastes like acetone, that you can buy for 6 dollars here. Even the worst of the worst is in general of higher quality than what I have found in privately owned stores in other countries.

The government gets more money. This one is given, compared to if private owners operated the stores.

They aren't out to make a profit. Obviously the individual stores need to keep afloat, but they keep having these campaigns for healthy alcohol consuming. They also never have sales and discounts to encourage you to buy more. They've actually had these funny tv commercials where this suit from America comes in and tries to make them strategize more to get more profits, but the staff always say stuff along the lines of "we don't care about profits, we only care about a healthy life style and are against alcoholism". Here's one of the commercials: https://youtu.be/PS3u1mqcAPs

Cons:
Opening hours. You can't just walk down and buy a bottle at 11PM. usually the opening hours are between 10AM-6PM, with some bigger ones in the bigger cities being open til 9PM. On weekends it's only open between 10AM-2PM. That's only on saturdays though, on sundays it's completely closed. I think it's even "worse" in Norway in that it's closed all weekend. I don't necessarily find this a con, though. They are open enough hours that it's never really an issue.

Number of stores, may be far away from you. As it's a state-owned store, there won't be as many stores selling alcohol as there would be if any store could sell it. This may be a problem if you live on the countryside as you may have to travel for like an hours or two to reach your closest store.


Here's just one shelf with a selection of red wines. There's probably at least one or two more with as many alternatives, just for red wine.

What do you think is best? Private owned, or state owned?

[Yunru]

Private is better, as it still has to go over the same regulations to sell it.

And people who make it, make money. A lot of wine-makers here have a brand names and limited supply so prices are always high for those.

Same goes for beer (some resturants make their own).

However some people still distil it themself (steam distillation).

Country is trying to reduce it any way possible, but they fail every time .

[Pannonian]

Pricing. In general it's cheaper. It's not THAT much cheaper when it comes to lower-grade alcohol, or the major brands, but they usually have some deal with the finer breweries and wineries that allows for the price to be lower than what you would find in other countries, even with our insanely high alcohol taxes.

Not sure if it's just a meme or really true, but i've heard this one often (especially from friends in North Germany):

The "nordic supply chain": Danes buy alcohol in germany because it's cheaper there; Swedes buy alcohol in denmark because it is cheaper there, norwegians buy alcohol in sweden because it's cheaper there.

When i lived in Finland i was kinda shocked by the prices...

In the end i think it depends on what you're used. While acohol can be bought anywhere in my country, cigarettes can only be bought in special shops, which is always funny when germans visit me who are always perplexed by this. (in a similar vein i find it kinda strange that i can buy cigarettes in germany at the super market...)

[Deathknightish]

Not sure if it's just a meme or really true, but i've heard this one often (especially from friends in North Germany):

The "nordic supply chain": Danes buy alcohol in germany because it's cheaper there; Swedes buy alcohol in denmark because it is cheaper there, norwegians buy alcohol in sweden because it's cheaper there.

When i lived in Finland i was kinda shocked by the prices...

In the end i think it depends on what you're used. While acohol can be bought anywhere in my country, cigarettes can only be bought in special shops, which is always funny when germans visit me who are always perplexed by this. (in a similar vein i find it kinda strange that i can buy cigarettes in germany at the super market...)

It's certainly true for cheap stuff, I go to Denmark all the time to buy cheap lager, but when you get to upper middle-high quality stuff it's often cheaper here because the company has made a deal with the brewery/winery through the government. I can get some really good wine for a couple of hundreds SEK less than what I would have to pay in other countries.

[Greyvax]

There are a bunch of states that sell liquor only via ABC stores, which are government (state) owned. This was the case when i lived in North Carolina.

It didn't make a difference to me, but the only caveats were the hours it operated, and the fact it was closed on Sundays.

[Dethxx]

Less government everytime

[Mihalik]

sip

First of all.

Your impression that private stores do not offer wide selections with knowledgeable staff seem to come from the fact that you've never been to a private specialty store.

Basically you are comparing your run of the mill supermarket/corner store to a specialty liquor store.

I sometimes want to buy a random 5 euro bottle of wine or a six pack of commercial IPA, and my random corner store/supermarket will do. If I want to spend 30+euro on a bottle of wine and good bottle of whiskey/gin/bourbon or some very specific Belgian beer I'll go to a specialty store.

As a rule of thumb I don't think consolidating retail of any consumer goods under a state monopoly is a good idea. Regulate retail? Absolutely. But taking it over? Naaaaah.

(Also just to shut down any libertarian nonsense, medicine and healthcare is not a consumer good as it doesn't obey the rules of a free market, you don't get to chose not to buy those services, you can choose not to buy booze.)

[Ghostpanther]

In the US, going to depend on the State. In Ohio, you need a liquor license to sell beer and wine, but even then, I think only in some places which have that requirement. However, vodka, whiskey, gin and other hard liquors, can only be sold in State run liquor stores. Not sure about bars however. I do not visit them.

I normally get my beer and wine from Walmart. How would I prefer it? Which ever allows me to get my beer and wine at a reasonable price. Which is how it is now. I do not like hard liquors.

[Zuben]

Under Finnish law products containing alcohol up to 5,5% are allowed to be sold on regular stores, otherwise everything is monopolised under government's Alko, and there's a set window for it; the stores (including Alko) can only sell you the goods between 9am and 9pm. Restaurants can of course offer you anything, but it has to be consumed in said restaurant, not to be taken with you when you leave (unless it's under 5,5% and before 9pm).

5,5% is enough for many great beer types and we do see impressive selections in stores, even some smaller ones, but I can't help but feel the limitation is arbitrary. Visiting Berlin some years ago I've never felt so relaxed and, honestly, free, as I was allowed to buy anything from anywhere. At a much cheaper price too, since the Germans haven't gone crazy with alcohol taxation either. And guess what, I didn't drink myself silly, but about the same as I would back home.

That's the thing with national monopoly, it's to prevent problem usage. Maybe to a degree it does, but one asks why this isn't the norm for all of Europe then. That's where we arrive to the problem of a wellfare state, which the Nordic countries are: they are under more pressure to prevent problems over mending them, because as wellfare states they cover mosts of the costs that would go to the customer in other nations and prevention is the far cheaper option. This is great of course, a safety net to remove pressure from an individual, but also the reason why our taxes are so high and why our merriment is so limited in comparison to other nations.

So there is a sound reasoning behind our monopoly. But since it takes away from individual freedom it needs to be based in factual data. Does monopoly actually prevent problem usage? Turns out the studies it's based on aren't really that faultless, as many "expert" organizations claimed raising the store-allowed alcohol percentage from 4,7% to 5,5% would raise annual deaths and health expenses by a large number. But it's been a few years and these projections didn't come to be. On the contrary, numbers actually lowered. The same noise was heard when the government decided to let stores decide their opening hours for themselves, including being open 24/7 if they wanted. This too saw similar development in statistics, contrary to what the opposition claimed.

Then there is some utter ridiculousness caused by alcohol legislation: Due to Europe's free movement of products Finns can order alcohol of any percentage online and it will be shipped directly to their homes... if it's bought from foreign stores. You can't do the same for products sold in Finland. This has led to domestic breweries, large-scale and craft alike, to sell their products in Estonian stores where it will be transported back to Finnish customers. A Finnish brewery can't directly sell their products to Finns, but they can sell their products to Finns if they do it via a foreign store. Other than being utterly ridiculous it also means value-added tax benefits Estonia instead of Finland.

Monopoly also often comes alongside higher alcohol taxation. There's a phenomenon of Finns en masse doing day-trips to Estonia just to buy large quantities of bulk products and spirits, because it's so much cheaper than buying them from local stores or Alko. What this means is that many Finns have large quantities of easily consumed alcohol in their homes. One would think it's something that enables problem usage even for those who aren't normally prone to it. People wanting a more European drinking culture to the Nordics often state they want lower taxation for bars and restaurants, so people would be more inclined to have their drinks in such social environments rather than in their homes. As it presently is a beer costs around 2-5€ in stores and 6-11€ in bars/restaurants, depending on how fancy their selection is. Bulk beer can be just a few dozen cents a can when bought/ordered from abroad. So instead of drinking better quality stuff in a social environment it's more economically viable for people to drink the cheap stuff at home by a large margin.

TLDR; Monopoly is limiting to individual freedom and isn't even that soundly justified when you look at it closer. Cultural shift towards European habits is desirable and looks like easing the monopoly gets us there.

[Sorensen]

Alcohol is for the weak, shouldn't be sold period.

[Queen of Hamsters]

I'll always prefer the Swedish model.

As a child of a doubly alcoholic home (mom and dad, weeks at mom's, weekends at dad's), knowing that they couldn't get unlimited supplies of strong alcohol at all times, especially during long weekends, was a small silver lining.

So yeah. How other countries do it is up to them, but I'm glad that Sweden has its model.

[Chairman Sheng-Ji Yang]

Some countries allow selling of alcohol through normal, private stores, while some have stores owned by the state such as Norway with Vinmonopolet or Sweden with Systembolaget, but which way is the best in your opinion?

As a Swede, I can see both cons and pros to our way of handling it. First of all, alcohol below 3,5% is allowed to be sold at any store, so it's just alcohol above 3,5% that only the state is allowed to sell. Anyways;

Pros:
Extremely knowledgable staff. Of course with private stores and companies you can find specialized ones in other countries as well that know their shit, but in general when I go to a store in Spain, America or Germany, the staff haven't been anywhere near as knowledgable. They just want to sell you booze and earn a profit.

Bigger supply, more alternatives. The selection is almost unlimited, especially in the bigger cities, and the good thing is that if you can't find what you are after, the store will put in an order of what you want. They only ask of you to buy an entire batch. So you can't only buy one bottle, you need to buy the entire box.

Pricing. In general it's cheaper. It's not THAT much cheaper when it comes to lower-grade alcohol, or the major brands, but they usually have some deal with the finer breweries and wineries that allows for the price to be lower than what you would find in other countries, even with our insanely high alcohol taxes.

Higher entry-level quality. You don't really find the terrible low-quality booze, like the vodka that tastes like acetone, that you can buy for 6 dollars here. Even the worst of the worst is in general of higher quality than what I have found in privately owned stores in other countries.

The government gets more money. This one is given, compared to if private owners operated the stores.

They aren't out to make a profit. Obviously the individual stores need to keep afloat, but they keep having these campaigns for healthy alcohol consuming. They also never have sales and discounts to encourage you to buy more. They've actually had these funny tv commercials where this suit from America comes in and tries to make them strategize more to get more profits, but the staff always say stuff along the lines of "we don't care about profits, we only care about a healthy life style and are against alcoholism". Here's one of the commercials: https://youtu.be/PS3u1mqcAPs

Cons:
Opening hours. You can't just walk down and buy a bottle at 11PM. usually the opening hours are between 10AM-6PM, with some bigger ones in the bigger cities being open til 9PM. On weekends it's only open between 10AM-2PM. That's only on saturdays though, on sundays it's completely closed. I think it's even "worse" in Norway in that it's closed all weekend. I don't necessarily find this a con, though. They are open enough hours that it's never really an issue.

Number of stores, may be far away from you. As it's a state-owned store, there won't be as many stores selling alcohol as there would be if any store could sell it. This may be a problem if you live on the countryside as you may have to travel for like an hours or two to reach your closest store.


Here's just one shelf with a selection of red wines. There's probably at least one or two more with as many alternatives, just for red wine.

What do you think is best? Private owned, or state owned?

That picture looks like the wine department of pretty much any random supermarket you'd find in France or the medium to big ones here in Switzerland. It looks small compared to the bigger stores, and cannot compare with the cumulated choice offered by a dozen of competing big retail chains + innumerable specialty stores + direct sales from producers.

A monopoly would effectively kill the small producers, which are numerous here, given the terroir of our wines countries, in addition to the recent boom in small scale craft beer productions, local whiskies and other liquors.

[Molis]

Should be private. Better prices and less regulation of hours.

[Gestopft]

Private is fine, with regulations. Heck, I remember when my state (via ballot measure) opened up liquor sales to grocery stores. It makes it nice and convenient for the times I do actually get hard liquor. And it's suuuuuper cheap at Costco, too.

[Lochton]

Licensed Private sales are fine.

[Ghostpanther]

Alcohol is for the weak, shouldn't be sold period.

They tried that here in the US back in the early 1900's. Did not last long. Bootlegging and poisoning from improper distilling, ran rampant.

Several studies have shown that moderate alcohol consumption can have some benefits for a person's health.

[Sorensen]

They tried that here in the US back in the early 1900's. Did not last long. Bootlegging and poisoning from improper distilling, ran rampant.

Several studies have shown that moderate alcohol consumption can have some benefits for a person's health.

Yeah but nobody is doing it for the health benefits. People drink alcohol because for one reason or another they can't handle their life, or they are doing it for fun because it's a drug.

[Unholyground]

In Canada we have liquor laws based on province, the maritime provinces for example have a 45% tax on our alcohol and it is government sale only unless you have a liquor licence but then you still have to pay that tax unless you brew your own for the business then I believe you get a lot of that back.

24 pack of beer in my province is about 65$ after taxes. Needless to say I do not drink much because weed goes a lot further for the same price and is infinitely better for you lol.

[Chairman Sheng-Ji Yang]

Yeah but nobody is doing it for the health benefits. People drink alcohol because for one reason or another they can't handle their life, or they are doing it for fun because it's a drug.

Depends on where you live, but in many places liquors of various kinds can be consumed for its taste, relaxing properties, its properties of easing conversation/social interactions, or even as the medium of social/religious rituals.

[Sorensen]

Depends on where you live, but in many places liquors of various kinds can be consumed for its taste, relaxing properties, its properties of easing conversation/social interactions, or even as the medium of social/religious rituals.

Nobody drinks it honestly for the taste.

The other reasons go back to what I originally said, weakness.