- New Decatur High will hold 2,409 students [AJC]
- DeKalb CEO seeks new start and new location for government [AJC]
- Belly General Store replacement in Va-Hi reported [Eater]
- Atlanta in 1925, looking north on Peachtree Street [ATL Urbanist]
- Craft Beer Buzzkill [Creative Loafing]
Photo courtesy of Creature Comforts Brewing website
Can one of DM’s right-leaning commenters chime in on the beer law thing? You’d think conservatives would be enthusiastic allies in any effort to tear down barriers to competition. Seems like our leadership’s more interested in protecting their good-old-boy network of cronies. What’s up with that?
Good luck with that. I haven’t heard anyone articulate a legitimate reason for opposing this craft beer bill. New jobs be damned. It’s all about seeing that the good old boys don’t have a dime diverted from their coffers.
IMO, this has more to do with religious beliefs than economics, especially as you get further out into the state from the capitol. Second, speaking politics, the distributors have been organized and paid lobbyists for decades while the craft brewers have only recently gotten into that game. Plus, although I have no actual facts, I would imagine the distributors are better funded.
As an aside, I was speaking to an owner of a fairly large beer distributor in GA, and he said that he not only doesn’t oppose onsite sale, he supports them. He thinks onsite sales will only contribute to the craft beer boom, which ultimately will help his business. But, he stated that craft brewers, even larger ones, don’t have the ability to even attempt wholesale distribution for a variety of reasons (compliance with various regulations, including tax laws, being one that hadn’t occurred to me). Perhaps the lobby is taking the hardline approach to ensure that only a little of the distribution lobby is whittled away.
Yeah, the breweries don’t want to self-distribute necessarily (some nano-breweries might start off that way). They just want to make money by selling at the brewery. There are huge profit margins when selling directly out of the brewery. However, these sales would make up less than 2% of their overall sales. Won’t hurt the distributors. And as you say, the healthier the industry, the better for all.
Didn’t the distributors oppose direct shipments of wine, and eventually lose that battle? My memory is hazy. If so, I would expect the same result here, eventually. Or at least hopefully.
They did, and I feel good about this law getting changed this year. I am a homebrewer (with an eye towards more) and beer nerd so obviously want this passed, but I want it passed even more simply as a lover of freedom. Yes, I know that sounded a bit cheesy…
“IMO, this has more to do with religious beliefs than economics”
Maybe, but in seems to me the religion factor is cover for the real point which is protecting the distributors. It’s a regulation Republican politicians can support without alienating the base.
It’s funny, because while you are correct in this instance, it also shows the hypocrisy/inconsistency on the left. Yes, distributors are huge contributors to these politicians (but both R and D) in Georgia. But this situation (regulation that is essentially protectionism) is what the left does best. It just tickles me that when it is something that the left enjoys, then they want regulation removed. Everything else? Regulation to the hilt! You know, the politicians say this 3-tier system is in place to ensure the safety of the product. The left would never regulate on that basis, would they? When the left and right say they want cronyism out of politics, they really mean that they want it out only in situations that benefit them (or toe their political philosophy). I say we limit the power of our government/politicians, so when a company/group etc. comes to them with a protectionist/regulatory proposal, the politician must say “We don’t have the power to do that. It is outside the scope of what our laws/constitution etc. allows.”
We typed similar sentiments at the same time, Walrus!
That makes me even more curious. If the regulations are such an objet d’amour for the left, why wouldn’t our right-leaning (or leant) leadership embrace this opportunity to end this example of left-wing idiocy? They could make a big point of taking a stand for conservative values. That’s why I’m having such a hard time with the effort’s difficulty getting traction. Outside, as you say, the power of politics as usual having little to do with actual principles.
Because “conservative”/Republican politicians are pretty bad themselves. On this issue, it is not only the money being fed to the coffers, but also the religious aspect of it. A former Republican Georgia State Senator once told me that he learned from Zell Miller a long time ago, that when a “liquor bill” comes up for a vote, you vote “no”, or you get voted out (if you represented certain areas). I think this line of thinking is fading away though (albeit painfully slowly).
I wouldn’t say the current distribution laws are “regulation that is essentially protectionism.” Protectionism is about protecting local industry from outside competition. The current laws protect powerful corporate interests from local competition, which is the opposite of protectionism.
I guess if that is your definition, but your illustration of the facts includes the word “protects”, so it’s all the same to me. And the distributors are not national corporations, they are Georgia operated companies. So local as well…
It’s garden-variety politics, isn’t it? The conservatives in the Assembly may generally favor deregulation, but they are even more in favor of campaign cash and staying in office. But of course the hypocrisy here goes both ways, since we now have progressives decrying the sort of complex regulations and borderline central planning they absolutely love in most other contexts.
Off topic a bit, but here is a thought experiment: set aside left and right for a moment and just think of the two parties, Democrat and Republican. Now imagine the two flipped positions on two issues: abortion and gay rights (yes, I know there are nuanced views within each party, but let’s keep it simple for this experiment). Democrats would, in a sense, then be arguing for more regulation ( a ban on abortion, restrictions on who can marry), while Republicans less. Here’s the question: Who would lose more support?
Can’t believe you all are nattering on about beer, regulation, conservative vs. liberal hypocrisy, the Constitution, etc. when the most obvious important news is that the remodeled DHS will retain the flying saucer motif.
+10 Seriously!
Ha! I was actually confused when I read that. It didn’t necessarily say it was staying in the same/similar form, did it?
Uh oh.
2,409 students???? That is three times the enrollment in 2008. I know annexation is a total wild card, but let’s assume for a minute it does not happen. Are all of the people who have moved to Decatur for the school system and led to the boom planning to stay after your kids graduate? Or are all of you going to move ASAP to make room for the next wave. If it is the latter, me thinks we’re going to have some excess space at DHS.
Indoor swimming pool!
If the choice is too much space or too little, in this case I’d definitely opt for too much. Even if you’re right and it takes a while for the predicted number of students to arrive, that extra space can be used for all sorts of things in the meantime.
Yup, the wave will crest at some level. After the wave finishes high school, it will take a while for the empty nesters to move on but then new young couples will move in. After a couple of years of low enrollment on the north side, and complaints that the north side schools are not getting the same level of service that the schools are getting on the more prosperous, high real estate south side, CSD will decide to kill two birds with one stone and close some south side schools and move those kids and teachers into the under enrolled north side schools to save money since enrollment is declining and to improve the schools on the north side. Young couples and families moving in will scream that there are two year olds everywhere and that a wave of young children is starting to build again. But “stroller statistics” will be ignored and Oakhurst or Winnona Park or Fifth Avenue or College Heights will be closed and the remaining schools will be enlarged. Soon after, the next wave of young children will become evident and that will be touted as proof of success of everything that CSD has done……unless of course, either DeKalb County School System has a complete makeover and/or the new DeKalb city-states develop decent school systems, then all bets are off.
I forgot that Oakhurst and Winnona Park will argue about which one should be closed–which is cuter, which has more room for expansion, which is in a flood plane, which is more historic, which has true Expeditionary Learning, etc, and church social activities will become tense again.
whoo hoo! #savethesaucer
The ATL Urbanist photo is from 1925, not 1935.
I don’t know if it’s not talked about because the breweries know that it will be the hardest fight in modernizing the beer/distribution laws, but I think that the biggest problem is that there is no freedom of contract in the brewery/distributor relationship. Once a brewery signs up with a distributor for a region of the state, the distributor can sell the distribution rights to another distributor at will, but the brewery has essentially ZERO ability to ever get out of the contract and search for competitive distributors. That, even more than the right to sell, seems like something the folks on the right who run the state would be strongly opposed to in every single case except where alcohol (and distributors’ campaign contributions) is involved.
You are exactly right. I was going to get into that, but decided against it. But this is why the distributors are against breaking up the 3 teir system. Because they would have to change their ways, or there WOULD be more self distributing. This proposed law doesn’t end 3 teir unfortunately.
Being an unabashed lover of year-end lists, I’m surprised it just now occurred to me (after putting on Fink’s “Sort of Revolution”) that there wasn’t a Favorite Music of 2014 poll here.
Oops the above was meant to be under FFAF. Please delete.
I realized the same thing a few days back. We can do one next week. Better late than never, I suppose!
I thought the HS had a gym that is only a few years old. Is that really being replaced? The old gym lasted a lot longer.
Once you reach a certain capacity you are required to have additional gym space. So the new one would be smaller (more of a practice space) and in addition to the existing gym.
Capacity for what? Sports teams? Since most students get their high school PE requirement done with in 8th grade, do they really need a bigger gym?
One thing that may help the movement — I don’t know the data, but there seems to be a steady decrease in the number of rural counties (and cities) that are dry. And when one falls, the neighbors start running after it (example: as Blue Ridge Georgia expanded access to alcohol, it put pressure on Fannin County to follow suit due to pressure from the restaurants not on Blue Ridge). There are also rising craft breweries (and distilleries) in rural Georgia. Blue Ridge has two breweries now! (not counting the brewpub). And David Rolston is from Blue Ridge.
All of these issues suggest that even if it does not pass this year, momentum is on our side. While it was posted this was a religious issue, such votes also reflect the rural/suburan/urban divide in the legislature. Sure – I have met people that would vote as Zell Miller suggested — but I suspect this number is eroding at a faster rate every year.
Or at least I hope so 🙂