What does it take to get a drink around here? How about a retail license to sell spirits? Yesterday, members of Governor Bob McDonnell’s staff announced a recommended plan for privatizating Virginia’s Alcoholic Beverage Control (ABC), by way of auctioning 1,000 retail licenses to the highest bidders. McDonnell called the plan "an opportunity to put half a billion dollars into transportation simply by eliminating an outdated government monopoly."
"By privatizing ABC, Virginia will join the majority of states in the nation that have long recognized alcohol distribution is not a core function of government," said McDonnell in a news release.
McDonnell and staff expect predict an auction—designed, at present, to feature 600 licenses for large establishments, 150 for smaller "package stores" and 250 for convenience stores—could generate a one-time payment of $500 million to the Virginia Transportation Infrastructure Bank. However, privatization would also eliminate a revenue stream that deposited, on average, $220 million in excise taxes into the state’s General Fund.
On the heels of the McDonnell news release, Virginia Sierra Club Director Glen Besa commented in a statement that McDonnell’s "’solution’ is no such thing.
"Five hundred million dollars is a drop in the bucket for Virginia’s transportation funding woes as the Springfield Interchange project alone cost more than $650 million to build," said Besa.
The release from the McDonnell camp says 332 retail licenses "will be guaranteed for areas currently served by an existing ABC outlet." There are seven such outlets between Charlottesville and Albemarle. Read more about the privatization debate here.
