Lawmakers should leave dry towns alone
ALBANY — There exists among many state lawmakers an unfortunate preference for control, an intolerance of deviation, an enjoyment of sameness.
This phenomenon isn’t new. Albany politicians have pretty much always wanted to control, well, everything. Considering that, it’s remarkable that New York still hasw seven dry towns — places that forbid the sale of alcohol.
But not for much longer, perhaps. A bill making its way through the Legislature would stomp out this touch of variation, overturning a 1934 law, passed immediately after Prohibition, that allows for local decision-making. The towns would be forced to conform.
Are the seven small, rural places hurting anything with their fuddy-duddyness? Bothering anybody? Harming the rest of us?
No. They’re just out there being quirky and doing their own thing. That can’t be allowed. They must get with the times.
“This ain’t the Prohibition era any longer,” the bill’s sponsor, state Sen. James Skoufis, told the Associated Press. “We live in New York in 2024, and this thing is kind of silly.”
Maybe the Democrat from Orange County is right. Maybe forbidding alcohol sales is kind of silly. But so what? There are 3,498,625 things about life in New York that are silly, not to mention many things that are downright lousy. Why is forcing towns to allow alcohol sales a priority?
Well, Skoufis’ bill claims it would “broaden consumer choice, spur new business and integrate outlier municipalities with the rest of the state” — because outlier municipalities, like outlier people, are a problem. Obviously.
Broaden consumer choice? It seems unlikely the legislation will make much of a difference. Spur new business? Oh yes, dollars will flood into Lapeer, a Cortland County metropolis of 800, and the six other dry towns just as soon as alcohol sales are allowed. They’ll be boomtowns!
Of course, if residents of the seven dry towns wanted to change, they could do so with good, old-fashioned democracy. They could vote to allow alcohol sales, just as residents in the once-dry Washington County town of Argyle did five years back. That they haven’t suggests they’re satis
fied with the status quo.
Who are we to say they’re wrong? I mean, I enjoy a good glass of red and a few cold beers as much as the next guy, if not more, but I can’t claim that alcohol doesn’t cause headaches — and not only of the hangover variety.
Anybody unfortunate enough to have visited Saratoga’s Caroline Street after midnight could describe the many problems caused by overly exuberant alcohol consumption. If the good people of Clymer, a dry town in Chautauqua County, would rather not deal with those troubles, why should we city slickers condemn them for it?
“I’m sitting here not understanding why there’s such a thirst, for lack of a better term, to increase access to alcohol,” said Rob Kent, former general counsel for the state Office of Addiction Services and Supports. “The numbers aren’t going in the right direction.”
Kent has a point. To wit, a new study from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found that deaths tied to excessive alcohol use rose by 29 percent in the five years before 2022. About 178,000 people died in 2021 from excessive drinking, the study found, compared with 138,000 in 2016.
State Police, meanwhile, tell us that alcohol-related road deaths surged from 262 in 2019 to 335 in 2022, when there were 7,000 alcoholrelated traffic crashes in New York.
I mention those statistics not to suggest that you put down the margarita or that we should enact new booze prohibitions. My point is that the 1,500 residents of Berkshire, in Tioga County, may have valid reasons for deciding to remain dry. It isn’t as though alcohol is good for us, after all.
“I always thought that home rule mattered on some level,” said Kent, also formerly an official in the Biden administration’s Office of National Drug Control Policy. “If the dry towns are content with their laws as they are, what’s broken?”
Nothing. Yet state lawmakers often feel compelled to meddle for the apparent sake of meddling. Maybe that helps justify the tops-inthe-nation salaries they enjoy. Maybe it just feels good to exercise power and tell distant people what to do.
But forcing the state’s seven dry towns to conform won’t make life in the state any better. It won’t accomplish or improve anything. It will only make New York a little less interesting and a little more homogenous. It will make Jasper, a dry town in Steuben County, more like Troupsburg, its southern neighbor.
What do you say we leave Jasper alone, just this once?