Why Were Liquor Stores Deemed Essential?

[PetraG]

I think we all are aware of the health hazards of alcohol abuse, so naturally many of us wonder why a liquor store could be considered an essential business.

A physician explained to me that a significant portion of the US population are heavy drinkers, to the point that they are very likely to suffer from alcohol withdrawal delirium (aka delirium tremens) if they abruptly stop their alcohol use. Here is a professionally-written description of the syndrome with primary sources:
https://americanaddictioncenters.org/alcoholism-treatment/delirium-tremens-symptoms-and-treatment

Delerium tremens is considered a medical emergency; untreated DT has a death rate of 37% (see link above). A substantial number of people with this condition will die even with hospitalization (in the range of 1-4%).

Because of the high number of very heavy drinkers in the general population and the high risk of DT if they were to abruptly stop all alcohol consumption, shutting down liquor stores would precipitate a public health emergency. That is why liquor stores were deemed essential businesses.

 

[dochawk]

That’s one speculation.

The other, actually backed by evidence in states that didn’t leave any open, is that people drove to other states.

And wine with dinner is a grocery, not an epidemic!

Nevada handled it more sensibly than some others, allowing delivery and pickup.

 

[PetraG]

Between you and me, I don’t think buying liquor locally was much of a driver of transmission.

 

[Katie777]

Because I have to have wine after dinner…

 

[PetraG]

Because I have to have wine after dinner…

In our state, we can get wine in grocery stores, but hard liquor could only be had from the state-run liquor stores (which represented one of the only up-ticks in state income during this entire thing, I’m sure).

On the other hand, that’s also the only place one can buy 190 proof alcohol in Oregon, which when diluted to 70% turns out to be as effective of isopropyl alcohol as a surface sanitizer. Since there was a shortage of isopropyl alcohol, there was that need, too, I guess. (Quite a few of the “craft” distilleries in Oregon and Washington changed over to add making disinfectants to their output.)

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[Katie777]

That’s so interesting. Here we can only buy beer wine and alcohol in a liquor store.

We have an abundance of hand sanitizers although I just bought a bottle for 9.99. Usually it would be about 3.50.

 

[Tis_Bearself]

Yeah, they’re selling distillery-made hand sanitizer in the beverage stores here now too. It took a while though because at first the distilleries were providing almost all of it to first responders, health care and charities. I ended up buying a gallon from a PPE store in Indiana at the same amount per ounce I’d normally pay for Purell at the grocery store. There is no sanitizer available in any grocery stores or Walmarts around here since March. Walmart is selling their store brand by mail order but the reviews all say the bottles leak in the mail and arrive partially or even totally empty.

 

[Tis_Bearself]

As for why liquor stores stayed open, in PA they didn’t, only the beer stores stayed open. Beer is also sold in grocery stores in PA so it would be hard to stop its being sold anyway.
The last few weeks of the shutdown, liquor and wine were also available by mail order, although at one point they stopped taking orders because they had too many.

I’ve heard of the DTs rationale, but also, there are just a lot of people who like to drink and with bars closed and everybody stuck in the house, making alcohol available helps keep people calm. It’s also a source of revenue for the state.

 

[Gyro]

I’m familiar with alcoholism on a personal level and I know for certain that a sizable portion of the adult population in the United States have serious problems with alcohol whether people want to admit it or not. Substance abuse is rife in our world. It’s a pandemic and it’s one of the largest health problems our nation faces. I am as certain as I am of the sun coming up in the morning that someone you know - perhaps it’s someone in your own family, or in your circle of friends, or it may even be yourself - who drinks more than they should regularly. Many (many!) of us should not drink alcohol at all. When a person has a debilitating addiction, their lives become unmanageable. They suffer greatly and other people they know and love and live with - wives, husbands, children, sisters, brothers and friends - suffer as well. And they suffer mightily. Not being able to have a drink when you’re an addict creates physical, emotional, relational and even mental problems for the addict as well as for society at large. It would be an act of cruelty for a state to impose perilous conditions on its own people that would inevitably lead to destroying the well being of individuals and families. The abuse of alcohol is doing this already - lives are already being destroyed. The banning of alcohol would only make an already bad situation much much worse. State health officials already know this and they have encouraged - quite rightly I believe - our governors to allow for the sale of alcohol to continue in the midst of this terrible COVID crisis.

If you or someone you know struggles with addiction to alcohol or any other substance there is a way out.

Here are the 12 steps addicts can take to be free of their addiction. The steps are expressed in the past-tense plural because doing so offers both hope and solidarity for those who embrace recovery…

1. We admitted we were powerless over alcohol - that our lives had become unmanageable.
2. Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.
3. Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him.
4. Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.
5. Admitted to God, to ourselves and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs.
6. Were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character.
7. Humbly asked Him to remove our shortcomings.
8. Made a list of all persons we had harmed, and became willing to make amends to them all.
9. Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others.
10. Continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong promptly admitted it.
11. Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God as we understood Him, praying only for knowledge of His will for us and the power to carry that out.
12. Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to alcoholics and to practice these principles in all our affairs.

God bless you all

 

[dochawk]

Because I have to have wine after dinner…

after?

I prefer it with dinner. Heavy, chewy reds that stain the teeth . . .

In our state, we can get wine in grocery stores, but hard liquor could only be had from the state-run liquor stores

Moving to PA for w while was a shock; I’d never lived anywhere where hard liquor wasn’t sold in grocery stores before that.

Although driving back through Mississippi and Missouri was a shock; I’d never seen hard liquor at a gas station before!


In a state where beer and liquor can be purchased in grocery stores, shutting the liquor stores is really just discriminating between similar businesses.

As for why liquor stores stayed open, in PA they didn’t, only the beer stores stayed open.

yeah, but those are inherently socially distanced; they’ve always put it in your trunk.

I’m familiar with alcoholism on a personal level

but that has nothing to doo with shutting down businesses.

Zero. Zilch.