Yesterday, I published a reply by MCGEO’s Gino Renne to Adam Pagnucco’s guest blog on Montgomery’s Liquor Control Regime. In his reply, Renne attacks Pagnucco’s claim that the Department of Liquor Control (DLC) raises prices:
In his first false claim, Mr. Pagnucco claims that DLC’s operations increase costs for the consumer. Across all categories except special order beer, costs are 2-10 percent cheaper than neighboring jurisdictions.
This claim struck me as incredible, so I decided to do a sampling of wine prices at a Montgomery County Liquor Store and Total Wine in McLean, Virginia. I focused on comparatively affordable wines and picked out some first at the DLC store and others from Total Wine, and did not know the price of the wine at the other store when I selected it (i.e. no cherry picking).
The results are presented in the following table:
Among the 26 wines, DLC doesn’t carry seven–I checked with the cashier who searched the computer. Only one wine was cheaper at the DLC store and another at the same price, and these two bottles were on sale.
Looking only at the 12 wines currently offered at a discount at Montgomery DLC stores revealed that even their sales tend to be lousy deals. The discounted prices on these wines were an average of 21.9% higher than at Total Wine. When this same set of wines is not on sale, the difference rises to 44.0%.
Examining the larger basket of 19 wines available at both stores shows that regular prices in DLC stores average 36.4% higher that at Total Wine across the river. Put another way, it would cost you an extra $89.04 (plus tax) to buy them in Maryland.
If Gino Renne begins his argument for maintaining the status quo with an obvious, easily disproved falsehood, why should anyone believe anything else he or MCGEO has to say on the subject?
Here is the real capper: Total Wine has its headquarters in Montgomery County but it cannot open one of its (nicer than DLC) stores and offer the same prices here. If you want to know why, look no further than MCGEO and the County Council.
