NC Tribune
North Carolina’s liquor-control laws are antiquated and need a major overhaul, to allow more retailers to join local ABC stores in selling gin, rum, bourbon and other distilled beverages, the backers of a new PR drive argue.
“Break up the monopoly,” the backers of the “Free Our Spirits” campaign say.
Led by Carolina Champions for Growth, the effort has political consultant Brad Crone and lobbyist Cody Hand on board and this week has rolled out a new website outlining its agenda.
It has yet to endorse specific legislation, but Crone says the ultimate objective is a move to “a hybrid [control] system similar to what they have in Tennessee and Virginia.
North Carolina now operates a government monopoly on the sale of bottled liquor, which occur at the ubiquitous ABC stores scattered in cities and counties across the state.
Virginia also has a government monopoly, but unlike North Carolina’s its stores are fully state-run, rather than being farmed out to local ABC boards.
Tennessee allows private liquor storesbut licenses and regulates them.
One key objective for Crone’s clients: Simplifying the state’s network of ABC boards.
Campaign backers want it pruned to one board per county. There are now 171 boards, meaning there are counties that have more than one.
Guilford County, for instance, has three: One for Greensboro, another for High Point and a third for Gibsonville.
That many local ABC boards “means 171 sets of overhead — duplicated administration, staff and operational costs that waste taxpayer dollars and create inefficiency,” Carolina Champions says.
The ABC system has defied privatization and reform efforts in the past, most notably in the early 2010s after the Great Recession. Then-Gov. Bev Perdue put an end to that discussion, saying she didn’t “want to be the governor … puts liquor into the big Target/Walmart stores or the local convenience stores.”
The state’s current governor, Josh Stein, also opposed privatization when he was a state senator.
“I’ve lived in New England where there’s a liquor store with chain link on every single corner,” Stein said back then. “I don’t think that’s particularly a better way to live than what we have in North Carolina.”
Sen. Jim Burgin, R-Harnett, in late April introduced a privatization measure, Senate Bill 938. It calls for liquidating the existing ABC-store network and replacing them with private package stores.
To date, Burgin is the bill’s only sponsor and it remains parked in Senate Rules.
Crone said Hand is reviewing Burgin’s bill.
The Carolina Champions is a nonprofit incorporated in 2021. Its CEO is Joyce Sullivan, who heads a Raleigh PR/marketing/fundraising firm.
Ray Gronberg
rgronberg@businessnc.com
