Good for Liquor, Bad for Gambling

In the latest General Assembly session, Delegate Warren Miller proved to be a friend of vice. The west county Republican pushed for legislation allowing HoCo’s licensed beverage retailers to offer tastings of hard liquor in addition to beer and wine and for allowing veterans and firefighters to hold casino nights for fundraising purposes.

He was successful on behalf of the liquor lobby but not so much for the loco veterans and firefighters. According to this story by Lindsey McPherson in The Columbia Flier, the fundraising initiative “never made it out of the House Ways and Means Committee.”

The state politico’s tried to insure that the liquor tasting doesn’t get out of hand though. The new law “specifies that a single person may not receive more than a total of one ounce of liquor — one quarter of an ounce per brand sampled — in a single day.”

I wonder how they expect that to be enforced. Let’s say that I attend a liquor tasting at Kelly’s in Ellicott City and then, later in the day, attend another one at I.M. Wine in Maple Lawn. While this would be a very good day for me, it would clearly be a violation of the laws intent. Is this law relying on the honor system?

Still, one out of two isn’t bad and Warren is now my favorite HoCo advocate for vice.