Food stores aren’t allowed to use milk as a loss-leader. The only one allowed to sell milk to consumers below state minimum prices is a dairy farmer who sells milk on his own farm.

Ohio, like Pennsylvania, has state stores for the sale of liquor, but has several types of licenses for establishments. Some places offering beverage alcohol by the drink can handle only 3.2% beer, others are allowed to sell regular 6.0% beer, malt liquor, and wine as well, and full service establishments are allowed to sell all legal alcoholic beverages by the drink. Some licenses allow carryout sales and others do not. However, minimum prices are enforced on prepackaged beverage alcohol, and if a place has a special on draft beer, that price cannot be advertised off the premises.

It might be reasonable to prohibit sale of gasoline by beverage alcohol retailers, but is there a reason why the sale of bread, milk, and hot dogs should be prohibited? After all, if a business sells both, it’s pretty hard to tell whether it’s an alcohol distributor selling food or a food store selling alcohol.

If selling people beer in supermarkets hurts taverns, that means that people are driving home before drinking, instead of drinking before driving home. That looks like less problem drinking to me.

Does the use of beer distributors make craft beers more available? It’s pretty easy to test that theory. Walk into 5 beer distributors’ stores, and see how many craft beers are available at each. There are a few distributors that carry a wide variety of brands; most can’t be bothered.

There aren’t many butcher shops in Lancaster. It’s not because people have given up eating beef, and it’s not because they’ve bred cattle that have only the most popular cuts of beef. If you want beef shanks, or tripe, all you have to do is ask at most supermarkets, because they are striving to win shoppers by offering products their competitors aren’t offering. Walk through the produce department and count the types of fruits and vegetables offered today that weren’t available in supermarkets 30 years ago.

Undoubtedly, beer distributors don’t want new competitors – but there’s no sound reason why their monopoly interests should be maintained. Allowing people to pick up a six pack or a case when they buy their other groceries cuts down on traffic on the roads, cuts down on gasoline expenses by consumers, and leaves more money in consumers’ pockets.