Displaying items by tag: liquor

Lawmakers held a hearing recently focused on the N.C. Alcoholic Beverage Control system. Their goal was to learn why ABC store shelves are empty and why bars and restaurants are scratching and scraping for typically ubiquitous brands such as Jameson’s and Titos.

RALEIGH — Spiritous liquor is still in short supply in ABC stores across the state, and supply still isn’t keeping up with demand. Republican lawmakers say things are getting even worse.

North Carolina’s obsolete alcohol sales bureaucracy was dealt tandem blows this month as its chairman resigned in frustration and a federal judge scrutinized its censorship under a First Amendment microscope.

RALEIGH — The N.C. Senate has passed House Bill 890, an all-encompassing measure that could help distillers succeed in a crowded and burgeoning industry.

RALEIGH — The N.C. Alcoholic Beverage Control Commission and the company operating the state’s liquor warehouses are trying to offer a modicum of relief to local boards suffering from problems with the global supply chain.

CHARLOTTE — Ollie Mulligan, this week from an airport somewhere in the Northeast, talked about his upcoming flight home, about returning to his native Ireland, to County Kildare. He thought aloud about the bright, rolling green fields. Of horses, and of Guinness.

RALEIGH — A bill advancing decades’ long work to reform the state’s liquor monopoly passed in the N.C. House and heads now to the Senate.

RALEIGH — A House committee discussion over an omnibus alcohol bill amounted to yet another debate involving people wanting to free regulations on spirituous liquor and those wanting to tighten the state’s stranglehold.

North Carolina governments shouldn’t be in the liquor business. Two recent stories illustrate this story well.

RALEIGH — The N.C. Alcoholic Beverage Control Commission voted unanimously last week to recommend the state award a 10-year contract for warehouse services to LB&B Associates, the target of an audit in 2018 that has over the previous years cost the state about $13.5 million.