Stifling Competition

According to this story by Larry Carson in The Sun yesterday, Delegates Guy Guzzone and Warren Miller are planning to introduce legislation to restrict the number of licenses for liquor stores in Howard County.

“The bill limiting the number of new licenses for liquor stores, though not for restaurants, was requested by the county's Licensed Beverage Association, whose members are always worried about close competition.”

As freemarket so aptly put it in this post on his blog, “This is a classic example of "do gooders" aligning with business interests to maximize business profits under the guise of saving society from some "evil" product.”

At the intersection of Route 103 and Route 104 in Ellicott City there are four commercial buildings clustered together. Each has a separate owner. Among the tenants are two dry cleaners and two convenience stores and one liquor store. All seem to be doing fine but I imagine that the drycleaners and the convenience stores would be happy if the county limited their competition too.

The only thing that the liquor store has that the drycleaners and convenience stores don’t is an association that works to keep out competition.

This type of legislation only further convinces me that we may be better off without the House of Delegates.