Do it for the children!
Please don’t laugh too hard when you read how much we’re paying for swill up here
The Washington State Liquor Control Board voted this morning to raise its “mark up” on the price for a bottle of booze from 39.2 percent of the wholesale cost to 51.9 percent of the wholesale cost.
The increase will take effect on Aug. 1 and will remain in effect at least through the end of the 2009-11 biennium, or June 30, 2011.
Liquor Board spokesman Brian Smith said only 2 of 3 liquor board members were present at the meeting in Lacey this morning, but the vote was unanimous.
The move was necessitated by the Legislature’s taking nearly $80 million from the Liquor Board’s revolving fund to help balance the state operating budget. The higher liquor prices are expected to replenish the fund, Smith said.
Board members decided for an across-the-board percentage increase rather than a flat $1.05-per-liter increase that had been proposed to the board, Smith said. That way, the increase will have a lesser impact on customers who purchase “value” liquor and a bigger impact on the high-end products, he said.
I’ve asked Smith to get back to me with a couple specific examples — on Monarch Vodka and Cutty Sark Scotch — just because the pricing for booze it so complicated — for me, at least. I’ll update this post when he gets back to me.
UPDATE: Cutty Sark Scotch (750 ml) would rise from $23.95 to $26, while Monarch Vodka (750 ml) would rise from $9.95 to $10.75. Monarch Vodka is the most popular product at state liquor stores.
It sure is a good thing they had a unanimous vote from two bureaucrats. Dissent is no longer patriotic, ya know!
It is cheaper in Utah.
It’s cheaper EVERYWHERE the State keeps it’s booger-hooks off the booze. WA and OR have State Liquor Stores, and it may not be sold by the bottle elsewhere (except in Class Six stores on military bases).
CA and AZ, for example, have private enterprise selling the hooch, and with all the taxes those states cram onto everything, booze still averages 15-20% cheaper by the bottle there.
I have a lot of “snowbird” friends traveling up from those two states every year.
I encourage Washingtonians and Oregonians to develop such friendships, also.
And now they’ve found another well to tap – year after year after year ……….. how soon before that “revolving fund” belonging to the WSLCB gets rolled into the old “general fund”?