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In Virginia, statistics on liquor sales and consumption are kept by the ABC Board. |
I submit the following:
Virginia is a so-called "control state," and, along with 17 other states, reports liquor sales from state stores.
About 25 percent of the U.S. population lives in these 18 control states.
No state keeps better records than Virginia. Here's a brief summary of 2007 gallon sales with an estimate of a per capita rate.
Spirits: 8,756,737
Wine and beer: 176,681,412
Total: 185,438,149
Population: 8,000,000
Per capita (includes men, women, and children): 23 gallons
The numbers were so high that I called the state ABC Board to verify that I was correctly reading the figures as millions of gallons. The answer was a terse "yes," followed by silence.
The other control states usually report only spirits gallon sales, which were at the 1 gallon per capita level, except for Michigan, which was 1.5.
Even conservative Utah reported significant consumption: 2 gallons per capita for spirits, wine, and strong beer for 2007.
I wonder if the ratio of beer to spirits consumption--10 beer to 1 spirits--holds for the control states other than Virginia.
If liquor sales were privatized, we would lose the ability to determine the gallon sales rate (read consumption rate).
Even when published, the figures are rarely mentioned in the press and appear to be lost in the noise of state statistical data.
James K. Syverson
Fredericksburg
