Posted on 04/07/2024 3:10:09 PM PDT by nickcarraway
Sadly, not by drinking it—the government just lost a fifth of the state’s inventory.
It's been a rough couple of years for government-controlled liquor systems. In 2022, news broke of an inside job at the Virginia Alcoholic Beverage Control Authority (ABC), in which a former state employee tipped off private collectors about which state-run liquor stores were expecting deliveries of rare and sought-after bourbons. Last year, Oregon Liquor and Cannabis Commission officials were busted for siphoning off hard-to-obtain bourbons for their personal use.
Now, Michigan is writing the latest chapter in the government's century-long saga of alcohol control embarrassments. According to a just-released audit of the Michigan Liquor Control Commission (MLCC), the state's complete inability to properly track its spirits inventory resulted in nearly a million dollars of liquor disappearing without a trace.
Michigan is one of 17 states that still operates as a control state. MLCC is the sole wholesaler of distilled spirits, meaning all liquor sold and distributed in the state must be originally purchased by the agency. Michigan law requires MLCC to exercise "complete control over alcoholic beverage traffic," but it turns out that the agency lacks control over pretty much everything.
Since the 1990s, MLCC has outsourced the actual storage and warehousing of liquor to three "authorized distribution agents" (ADAs), who in turn use 11 warehouses to house the booze. The ADAs, which essentially act as a government-sanctioned oligopoly, are supposed to be operating as agents of the state. But the state code is silent about what the actual responsibilities of the ADAs entail, which results in a situation where everyone and no one is in charge at the same time.
Perhaps the most significant finding of the audit is that $961,000 of MLCC's liquor inventory—totaling 62,294 bottles, housed in ADA warehouses—mysteriously vanished between January and February 2022. To put this in context, the missing liquor constituted 20 percent of the state's entire inventory. While the state is supposed to conduct physical inventory counts at the ADA warehouses, zero inventory checks took place from October 2019 to July 2022 (which, naturally, MLCC blamed on COVID-19, despite the pandemic not starting in earnest until the spring of 2020 and Michigan lifting its lockdown orders by June 2021).
"MLCC was unable to provide documentation regarding the whereabouts of the missing inventory," the audit dryly remarks. Although one should never ascribe to malice what can be explained by incompetence, it's worth noting that the state's inventory includes spirits ranging as high as $45,000 per bottle, which creates enormous opportunities for malfeasance given MLCC's slipshod tracking protocols.
Were this Agatha Christie-meets-Ayn Rand mystery not enough, the audit goes on to spell out how MLCC is also wholly incapable of ordering rational amounts of each booze type it stocks. The report recounts the agency purchasing 12,204 bottles of a particular spirit in a week in which a mere 1,104 bottles of that spirit were sold. The agency then kept over 11,000 bottles of the spirit on hand for the next 48 weeks—the last 19 of which saw zero sales for it. MLCC also purchased 780 bottles of another spirit over the course of 77 weeks, with zero corresponding sales in any of the weeks those purchases were made.
The MLCC's problems extended beyond inventory ineptitude as well, with the agency also somehow issuing numerous liquor licenses to establishments located in dry jurisdictions, which it now will be forced to revoke. These establishments were selling alcohol in dry locales since 2018 without anyone noticing, until the auditor stepped in.
In perhaps the understatement of the century—and in language only a government lawyer or accountant could appreciate—the audit rates MLCC's overall performance as "not sufficient." The agency's preliminary response is that it "agrees" with all of the audit's findings, as the report's mountain of evidence is apparently too much even for a bureaucracy to ignore.
Lost amid the report's 65 pages of boozy bean-counting—and the scandal of a million dollars of liquor aspirating into thin air—lies a deeper question: Why, in 2024, is the Michigan government still trying to operate as the wholesaler for distilled spirits? It doesn't do so for beer and wine, and it already goes so far as to outsource the actual warehousing and logistics to its distribution agents.
Sadly, the most predictable answer is also likely the most accurate: MLCC has generated some $2 billion for the state's general fund over the past decade. Perhaps a million dollars in missing liquor is a small price to pay after all.
government bureaucrats stealing alcohol, at taxpayers’ expense, from the state-run distribution system?
I can guarantee it started day one this system was established.
Now I understand why my local liquor store can never fulfill my orders for specialty bourbons.
In addition to being the exclusive liquor distributor, the MLCC also sets a minimum price for liquors, so there isn’t much point in shopping around because everybody charges the same state minimum price.
Tried to find some blackberry Crown Royal yesterday. Once released, it sold out in two days. Bet the gubmna has some.
This situation if ripe with ways to screw the buying public and taxpayers.
This is straight up against the American way.
The government should not be able to directly compete with free enterprise. In this case they just shut free enterprise out of the picture and charge whatever they deem fit.
Check Gruntchen’s liquor cabinet…
62,294 bottles, housed in ADA warehouses—mysteriously vanished between January and February 2022. That’s 20 of the inventory. And their best stuff.
No inventory checks? This would have shut down a private business. The govt has zero respect for tax payers nor the $ they take from them via taxation.
HA.
Wait until Nancy Pelosi hears it. She’ll be inconsolable.
Nobody told them Prohibition was over and they didn’t have to keep smuggling it in from Canada?
LOLOL...that’s just perfect here! Great memory, DFW!
Jan-Feb 2022 was the height of the fear-porn effort in Michigan regarding the WooHooFloo and the vaxx.
The biggest state-sponsored push of the “boosters”.
They knew no one was watching, because every bureaucrat was hyping the vaxx to save their phoney-baloney jobs.
It would seem to me to be many more fifths, a few thousand or so.
To misquote an old proverb, in socialism you line up for the booze, while in capitalism the booze lines up for you.
One of the reasons Khrushchev was removed, was there was a shortage of vodka. That’s a no-no in Russia.
Yes, as the silliness in Gubmint continues, Blazing Saddles references become significant.
Everytime I visit the family in California I load up on liquor. It’s over half the price. Many times closer to 2/3 the price. Every grocery store, costco, sam club, trader joe, gas station, liquor barn, ALL have liquor. And there’s never a shortage of even the finest stuff. Even the store labelled liquors are good. The Vons labelled whiskeys are excellent.
Nah. She’ll be angry about the missed opportunity in CA.
a long time ago Washington state had a liquor control board who regulated every part of the distribution and retail of all spirits.
It was the only profitable state enterprise, and it had to be destroyed.
Costco was leaned upon heavily to make that happen.
Government run liquor sales is an outdated remnant of Prohibition and is not so.much about revenue as control.pf drinking. Bureaucrats cannot effectively run anything. Economist Milton Friedman once said if the government were in charge of the Sahara Desert in a few years there would be a shortage of sand
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