Progress: Booze or Lose

Booze or Lose
There’s nothing quite like the taste of an ice-cold beer while watching a good football game in the fall. That is one of my personal favorites. However, I may be alone in my love of the occasional alcoholic beverage, as Bell County is a dry county. This, as I’m sure most of us are aware, means that we cannot purchase alcohol at any establishment in Bell County (at least legally or without a membership to an exclusive club). I find this rather upsetting especially whenever I run out of alcohol. I have to get in my car and travel through the tunnel to Virginia in order to stock up and avoid another trip for as long as possible. This, to me, is annoying.
I have heard it all from people in the area regarding my personal choice to responsibly consume alcohol. I have been told that consuming alcohol is a sin and that I am not being "a good witness" of my Christian faith. I have at times engaged in friendly debate with these individuals about why and how alcohol came to be considered a sin against God. The problem with these friendly debates is that when I do debate with someone opposed to alcohol consumption, the person I’m speaking often is too stubborn and refuses to listen to my argument. I’ve heard it all; every type of outlandish attempt to refute my logic. "Jesus never drank wine... it was fermented grape juice" is one of my personal favorites. (Note: The last time I checked, fermented grape juice was and is wine that does, in fact, contain alcohol). I personally feel that letting a few people in the area openly influence the county’s alcohol policy is severely retarding the economic growth in the area. It’s not just a matter of convenience for me when I run out, it’s also a matter of creating jobs.
Let’s look at alcohol from an economic standpoint. Alcohol creates the possibility of jobs. Bell County is currently dry. Businesses that make money from alcohol sales cannot move into the area because, well, they cannot sell alcohol. This includes restaurants and bars. I have heard people complain about the lack of dining options in the area. Most people will leave the area and travel to New Tazwell, Knoxville, or other places to dine because of the lack of better options. Ryan’s and J. Milton’s have an oligopoly (or fewness of sellers) in the city of Middlesboro, which means that because of a lack of competition, they can essentially charge what they want and sacrifice quality to equal that of their closest competitor. Oligopolies, like monopolies defy capitalism and free market competition to keep prices down and keep quality up. Not to take anything away from these restaurants, but I find myself venturing out of state for my dining since my past few experiences with both restaurants have been less than enjoyable. By going wet, Middlesboro can attract new restaurants like Applebee’s, T.G.I. Friday’s, or other restaurants that sell alcohol. The key phrase in that last sentence is "can" because to entice these businesses, the Middlesboro City Council must also create some kind of tax break/incentive for these companies as well. New restaurants within the city mean new jobs and money staying in the area. People that travel out of the city to patron other restaurants take their money with them and deposit it into another community when that money could be spent here in town. The city and county are losing revenue from displaced business and sales.
Additionally, for new businesses to locate to an area (not just restaurants) there normally must be an adequate quality of living for their potential employees. Businesses will not move into an area if they cannot recruit and retain high quality candidates due to a low quality of living (most often referred to as "things to do"). Middlesboro has a relatively low quality of living. However, there are other resources that currently make the area attractive to businesses. Middlesboro is sandwiched between a university (LMU) and a college (Union), and even has a vocational school located within the city limits (SECC). Businesses can easily pull from these institutions to high capital employees. Bell County is ripe for businesses to move in if the quality of life were improved. Allowing alcohol to be sold increases the chances of improving the quality of life in the area so that businesses have additional incentive to move in.
Now let’s talk about bars. I believe allowing bars to locate in Middlesboro would be a benefit overall. Think about all the 20 year olds that have nothing to do in town. They will often go to the Oasis in Harrogate to have some pizza and a beer, travel to a bar in Tennessee, loiter in former Rose’s parking lot, or even travel to Barbourville to cruise the strip. These are some of the more tame scenarios. Three of the four scenarios mentioned involve leaving town and spending money outside of Middlesboro. By allowing a bar to locate in town, this allows a place unlike neighboring Lee County, Virginia or Knox County to compete. It would draw clientele from Middlesboro, greater Bell County, some from Knox County, and even people from Virginia and Tennessee. It keeps more money in the community and again provides more jobs. Bartenders and bouncers would be required creating a few more jobs in the area and owners would be required to pay property taxes, income taxes, and sales tax; all good things for the area.
Continuing with the idea of job creation from alcohol sales, allowing alcohol to be sold in the area would have a dynamic economic impact. I have heard people argue that allowing alcohol to be sold again in Middlesboro or Bell County would raise the crime rate. I will not try to refute this. However, there is a problem with drugs in the area as well. The main difference between legalized alcohol sales and illegal drugs is that you can taxes you can collect on the sale of alcohol. Since illegal drugs are sold on the black market, and hence illegally, there is no way to regulate their sale or collect taxes to help defray the costs of regulating the market. Taxing alcohol provides revenue to regulate sales and help increase the local police force to control potential problems. Regulating alcohol sales would require more police and inspectors that would be funded through sin taxes on alcohol amongst other revenue generated from new businesses that could locate to the area. These new jobs also offer a way to keep more money in the community and additional revenue from local income taxes. Also, by legalizing the sale of alcohol, the bootlegger market would dry up similar to how organized crime stopped selling alcohol when Prohibition ended. Cheaper prices offered by major retailers undercut sales in the alcohol black market and no longer make it profitable for bootleggers (as it did so for mobsters after Prohibition was repealed). Any increase in crime would be offset by the decrease in crime from bootleggers leaving the market.
Sin taxes are great things. It allows government to tax (at their discretion) anything that some feel are sinful. It has the intended consequence of increasing revenue to the taxing authority, but also has the effect of decreasing purchase and consumption because of the higher price on the good associated with the tax. This is currently the case with tobacco. A tax on tobacco raises the price as an incentive to get the consumer to purchase it less. As goods get more expensive, people demand less of them. Middlesboro and Bell County would be able to place a tax specifically on the sale of alcohol at a rate that can help regulate the consumption of the good. A sin tax, in addition to revenue generated from business transactions at restaurants and bars, would provide more revenue to the area.
What about drunk driving offenses? My belief is that if alcohol is sold legally in Bell County it would decrease not only drunk driving, but any fatalities from drunk driving. Here’s my reasoning; if people don’t have to drive as far to get alcohol (or even have to travel to bars outside of the city) they are less likely to attempt to drive home drunk. This convenience factor would help to reduce drunk driving in the area. I’m not saying it’s going to eliminate the problem, but I certainly think it will reduce it to some extent. I have no evidence to support this claim, but certainly feel this would be the case. However, it should be noted that regulating drunk drivers is already within the scope of duties of the local police. If, for some reason, there are additional drunk driving offense that result with the legalized sale of alcohol, this would already be accounted for with an expansion of the police force. The logic is that allowing the sale of alcohol will help fund the solution to problems caused alcohol so that any negative impact is either minimized or offset.
So if Bell County goes wet, will we see an increase in crime and public intoxication offenses? I certainly don’t think so. People already have the ability to purchase alcohol elsewhere and bring it into Middlesboro for consumption. There are no roadblocks into the county to stop alcohol from crossing the line. Since this is already the case, we have no reason to believe that allowing the sale of alcohol in Bell County will increase crimes associated with alcohol. Simply put, we would be increasing our revenue by taxing and regulating the sale of alcohol and detracting this revenue from our neighbors that already benefit from alcohol sales.
I always hear people complaining that Bell County does not having enough jobs or that there are not enough jobs for people to be removed from welfare payrolls. These are often the same people that argue that Bell County should remain dry. Allowing alcohol to be sold in Bell County would create the possibility for new jobs in the area and provide new opportunities for people to support themselves. In my opinion, the sale of alcohol is essential for the economic survival of Bell County and Middlesboro.
I’ll close with a little Biblical perspective. How can God be opposed to consuming alcohol when Jesus turned water into wine at a party? When He blessed a cup of wine and called it His blood? This, to me, demonstrates that if you believe Jesus is God’s Son, then you should think that God condones the responsible consumption of alcohol, but you have your right abstain from its consumption.