A toast to booze reform

Visitors to Massachusetts often find the laws regulating alcohol here rather quaint. Happy hour is against the law. Most grocery stores can’t sell beer or wine. Until recently, it wasn’t possible to order a Bloody Mary if your brunch reservation was at 10 a.m.

Behind the scenes things are arguably worse. Small brewers are subject to onerous rules for distributing their product to local stores and restaurants. Cities and towns still have to go begging at the State House if they want to exceed a state cap on alcohol licenses in their communities.

The package store and wholesaler lobbies wield enormous power on Beacon Hill, and even a Supreme Court ruling wasn’t enough to get lawmakers to authorize direct wine shipments to Massachusetts consumers from out-of-state wineries, at least not until several years had passed (and Drew Bledsoe got involved).

It’s an unholy mess — a system rigged in favor of special interests. So while we don’t envy Treasurer Deb Goldberg the challenge of weeding through all of the laws and regulations governing alcohol since the end of Prohibition, but we’re pleased she is doing so.

Goldberg has formed a task force that will conduct a comprehensive review of those laws and regulations, and while she surely didn’t run for treasurer with the dream of becoming the state’s booze czar, the system is the system. The state treasurer runs the Alcoholic Beverages Control Commission, and will soon be in charge of marijuana regulation, too.

Goldberg will surely run into resistance, merely for challenging the status quo. And it’s unclear where the work of the task force will lead.

But with any luck it will be in the direction of a more efficient, business-friendly and consumer-friendly system.