Thankful for a Free Market
Well, I’m thankful for a more free market in Virginia than Pennsylvania when it comes to wine sales. With our accidental discovery tonight that we are out of white wine, and now being down to our last bottle of red, we’ll be on the prowl for new selections when we go to my mom’s in Virginia this holiday.
See, in Pennsylvania, we have government-controlled wine stores. We cannot buy a bottle of reasonable Bordeaux like what we had tonight with our holiday-themed lasagna at most state outlets. In fact, we would have to go miles out of our way to a “premium” state store to find a selection one might call “not sh*tty.” (And note, we’re not winos by any stretch of the imagination!)
Virginia allows supermarkets & specialty retailers to sell wine. So we can go to a Kroger and find a better selection than that of a state store in Pennsylvania. We’ll periodically make a trip to the land of the free – New Jersey in this case – to buy less regulated wine that at least has some market forces at work since it can be sold by liquor stores that aren’t owned by the state. That’s completely illegal to do, but the police aren’t about to start cracking down on such illicit purchases. If they did, they know that their fellow state employees at the local wine shops would be out of jobs when the public outrage would demand the system be dismantled.
So for this holiday, I’ll celebrate what is left of free market sales of wine by stocking up in Virginia so our shelves are full once again.
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New Jersey….land of the free???!!!??? Irony of ironies!
I was wondering if anyone would notice.
Yes, it is! But sadly, they have a more free liquor, wine, & beer sales system than we do in Pennsylvania.
I just moved to the California desert and a new job at Edwards AFB. The Rite-Aid Pharmacy has a rather excellent selection. The Von’s and Ralph’s supermarkets are amazing liquor stores. Even spirits are available.