Initiative 1183 will take away the jobs of 1,400 state employees. State liquor stores are not a tax burden, they produce revenue for the state general fund. What will be a tax burden is new unemployment claims. Retailers will free up existing shelf space to make room for a limited selection of liquor. This will not create new jobs to employ my husband and other former state liquor store employees.
The structure of the liquor business proposed by I-1183 exists nowhere else in the U.S., so there is no model to look at. Fees collected by the state under I-1183 will not make up for all the lost revenue generated by state stores. The state will have to make up for that loss somewhere. I-1183 will bring us closer to a state income tax.
If the WSLCB were privately owned and wanted to sell off its liquor business, it would place a value on that business and negotiate its sale. Under I-1183 the state is expected to simply walk away from the enterprise it has spent 77 years building, one that makes consistent high profits that benefit all residents, while effectively managing the public safety concerns around alcohol within the top 5 percent in the nation. Let's not fix something that isn't broken.
KIM SUNDAL, West Richland
