High price of booze regs

Massachusetts voters were warned a decade ago that there would be mayhem in the streets if more food stores were permitted to sell beer and wine — and unfortunately many fell for it. They defeated a question that would have increased the limit on the number of alcohol licenses a grocery store may hold in the state.

A few years later Beacon Hill agreed to slowly increase the number of booze licenses that food retailers can hold, though there is still an unnecessary cap (currently seven, it goes to nine by 2020). And the retailers can only acquire an existing license; no new licenses were created. That was a giveaway to the package store lobby, whose licenses could then retain their value.

But does anyone really still believe that if Trader Joe’s in Cambridge and its new outlet in Allston are permitted to sell Two-Buck Chuck, that will lead to a surge in drunk driving? More underage drinking? Or that it will drive the many mom-and-pop liquor outlets in the area out of business?

It’s absurd, and yet because of current restrictions Trader Joe’s plans to end alcohol sales at its Cambridge location. Shoppers are told not to fret — they can make a trip to Allston or one of the other store locations that sells alcohol.

But why should they have to? The state’s laws and regulations should not be used to protect one industry at the expense of another. Shoppers in Cambridge shouldn’t be inconvenienced so that liquor retailers can keep their vise-grip on sales.

This is one of countless restrictions that uphold the Bay State’s reputation as a booze backwater, and Beacon Hill ought to revisit it.