Earlier this year Governor Perdue told a committee to study consolidating and streamlining state services, and this month the panel, the Budget Reform and Accountability Commission, is looking at the state's system of ABC stores. In other words, booze is on the menu.
Good thing. Our system of liquor stores run through local governments but overseen by the state Alcohol Beverage Control Commission has its good points, but it's fundamentally a post-Prohibition concoction. Other states employ a wide range of models for alcohol sales -- New Hampshire's government is practically in the discount-liquor business -- and a fresh look at what might work best here is in order.
Interested parties, local governments among them, may resist change. And North Carolina, despite its free-enterprise leanings, might not lean to laissez-faire liquor sales. But the budget commission, if it's really ready to take a new look at established ways of doing things, should elect to find out if we can do better.
