MoCo and the DLC's Monopoly on the Sale of Liquor

There's a lot of controversy about the way in which the sale of liquor is regulated in Montgomery County. Usually discussion of this topic gets emotional and heated very quickly. I'll try to make it calm and logical:

Current situation:

Since the end of the national Prohibition on the sale of liquor in the U.S. in 1933, Montgomery County, Maryland, has required that all liquor sold in our county be sold through the Department of Liquor Control (DLC). Some people think this is wrong, for several reasons:

1. Our county is the only one of more than 3,000 in the U.S. that handles liquor sales this way.
2. As a matter of logic, should a county government be in the business of having a monopoly on the sale of liquor. Is that a proper government function?
3. Almost everyone agrees that DLC does a poor job, but some say they are trying to improve now. 
4. DLC said they didn't deliver the liquor bought from them by county restaurants during the recent holiday season, the most important time for restaurants to have the liquor they needed to sell to their customer.
5. A local tv crew followed DLC delivery trucks a few months ago and videotaped their drivers drinking while driving their DLC liquor delivery trucks. As far as I know, no one has said what happened, if anything, to these drivers or what is being done now to prevent this from happening again.
6. It is alleged that a very large number of liquor cases go "missing" almost every day, possibly 100 cases a day.
7. I have personally found DLC retail store employees to be extremely rude, and DLC websites and store signs about their hours to be inaccurate without any effort to correct them.


On the other hand, our County Executive and 8 of the 9 Council members say our county relies on the revenues brought in by liquor sales from the county's DLC monopoly. The number usually given is $30 million but different people use different numbers from time to time. In addition, these same people say that county bonds of over $100 million are backed by promises of future county monopoly sales of liquor and if the liquor monopoly were ended the county would have to back these bonds in another way. The claim is that if the county didn't get this $30 million in DLC profits, county property taxes would have to increase by about $100 per house, or county services would have to decrease. Some also say that the county liquor monopoly helps to lessen drunkenness and prevents liquor stores "on every corner,) at the same time DLC is opening more stores to try to make more money by selling more liquor. And of course this ignores the ability of zoning laws to regulate where and how many liquor stores there can be.

The union of DLC employees supports the current county liquor policy, saying if liquor sales were opened to competition DLC might not be able to compete and at least some of its employees might lose their jobs.

The County Council passed a bill they call a compromise, to allow restaurants in our county to buy "specialty" beer and liquor outside the DLC county monopoly on liquor sales. This bill says that DLC can set a price to be paid by restaurants to DLC for any loss of revenue DLC would incur from this, the amount to be set by DLC itself even though DLC would be receiving this money for doing nothing, in fact receiving money for having failed to do a good job at this part of the marker.

There is a bill being introduced in the Maryland General Assembly (since the state controls all liquor policies, even those of counties) to have a referendum in MoCo to let the voters decide if private companies should be allowed to sell liquor in the county in competition with DLC. Proponents say this would allow the citizens to decide this important issue, and if DLC can do a good job in competition with others it would continue to make money for the county. Opponents say the issue is too complicated for a vote by the citizens and that liquor companies would spend a lot on advertising to sway the voters.

That's the current situation, as objectively and as emotion-free as I can describe it.