What is a Liquor Commission? | State Liquor Commissions

In the United States, each state has a governing body that regulates the production, distribution and taxation of wine and alcoholic beverages. That governing body is called the state liquor commission. This blog will explore the liquor commissions found all over the United States from the states of Connecticut to California. We will talk about the history, purpose and differences between liquor commissions found in the United States and around the world.

When the United States was settled by the colonialists, the governments of Europe looked for ways to tax the colonies and bring some money back to the seats of power in the old country. The King of England taxed everything from tea to alcoholic beverages. Today, liquor commission’s major responsibility is not only the regulation of the beverages but for the collection of a tax on wine as well as taxes on the liquors sold in the state’s wine and liquor stores. 

When the Volstead Act (AKA the National Prohibition Act or the 18^th amendment of the U.S. Constitution) passed, Congress overrode the veto of President Woodrow Wilson and it was made into law. The law stated that "no person shall manufacture, sell, barter, transport, import, export, deliver, or furnish any intoxicating liquor except as authorized by this act." Exempt from this law was the production of wine for personal consumption by farmers because wine was thought “it was a non-intoxicating fruit-juice for home consumption". Many farmers circumvented the law by turning their grape crops into “wine bricks” or “wine blocks” that were sold with the warning that it should be put into a jug of water but if it were allowed to sit for twenty days or more, it would turn into wine. That would be illegal. Today, many of the farms in the Northeast have been turned into vineyards and produce wine for local consumption and the State of Connecticut levies a tax on wine sold in vineyards, wine stores and package stores. 

Between 1920 and 1933 during prohibition, many people around the country disobeyed the laws and became bootleggers. It was during this time that many family fortunes were made by families like the Joseph Kennedy family in Boston, Massachusetts. Organized crime made millions by providing alcoholic drinks to the public. One infamous public figure, Al Capone, was also sent to jail on Alcatraz Island for the distribution and sale of alcoholic beverages when the Feds were looking for a way to put the criminal in jail.

When Prohibition ended (Wikipedia entry http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prohibition_in_the_United_States ) due to the repeal of the eighteenth amendment of the U.S. Constitution on December 5, 1933, state liquor commissions in the Northeast grew in importance as a bureaucratic organization in each state’s government. And today, some of the laws from that time have been held over from the 18^th Amendment due to the influence of the prohibitionists and Puritans.

In Connecticut, the “Blue Laws” still prohibit the sale of alcoholic beverages in wine and liquor or package stores on Sundays and after 8:00 PM every other evening during the week. The State of Connecticut Liquor Control Commission (http://www.ct.gov/dcp/cwp/view.asp?a=1623&q=273660) also dictates that minors under the age of twenty-one cannot buy any alcoholic beverages and it is illegal to sell to them.