Bottoms up for the bottom line
Record sales at Virginia’s state-run liquor stores adds $545.3M to state budget
The bad news: We’re drinking more.
The good news: We’re drinking more.
Record sales at Virginia’s staterun liquor stores helped save the commonwealth’s pandemic-bruised budget, adding $545.3 million to the kitty, a $45.8 million increase from the year before.
And that’s just through the end of June, the close of the last fiscal year.
Receipts at the stores, operated by the Virginia Alcoholic Beverage Control Authority, have spiked every month since.
July: up $23.5 million.
August: up $12.8 million.
September: up $18.2 million.
October: up $21.9 million.
“We were a little concerned when restaurants shut down, since they’re a significant part of ABC revenue,” said Barry Knight, a Virginia Beach delegate who serves on the House Appropriations Committee. “But we really got a surprise with so many people going to the stores. We had some of the greatest months we’ve ever had.”
Restaurants and hospitality licensees typically account for 18% of ABC sales. Hammered by months of closed doors or restricted operations, their share plummeted to zero during the worst of it.
The rest of us, however, made up for that — and then some.
Apparently, booze — along with toilet paper — is a pandemic household priority.
It helped that alcohol remained easy to access. Virginia, one of just seven states that own all liquor stores within their boundaries, declared its 389 outlets “essential” during the public health emergency — immune from lockdowns. Expanded online ordering, curbside pickup and shipping added to convenience.
The wisdom of all that has been questioned, particularly at a time when support groups for alcoholics have been relegated to online meetings while isolation and stress trigger problem episodes. The results of a national study released in September indicate an increase in binge-drinking during the pandemic, particularly among women. According to RAND, a nonprofit research organization, 41% of women surveyed reported having four or more drinks within a couple of hours.
But alcohol has long been a source of revenue for the commonwealth, under control of the state since the end of Prohibition in 1933. Sales have grown steadily, funneling more than $2.3 billion into the general fund in the last five years alone.
And bottoms up for the bottom line has never helped more than this year.
Legislators have been wrestling with a two-year budget, initially approved in March when the economic future appeared rosy. Within months, plans for new spending were largely jettisoned as the state braced for a projected $2.8 billion gap.
Overall revenues wound up a bit better than feared, but during a special session called this fall to sort it all out, legislators were still “looking and scratching” to make ends meet, Knight said.
“And the extra ABC sales really did help,” he said. “They were a ray of sunshine.”
An aside: Turns out that our favorite firewater for weathering these trying times has been Tito’s Handmade, a domestic vodka.
It’s at the top of ABC’s latest sales chart, followed by Hennessy VS (cognac), Jack Daniel’s 7 Black (whiskey), Jim Beam (bourbon) and Patron Silver (tequila).