Dan

Calabrese

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February 23, 2009

Jennifer Granholm’s New Michigan Recovery Plan: Consume More Alcohol!

Sheriff Mike Bouchard of Michigan’s Oakland County will tell you, “Nothing good happens after midnight.” He learned that lesson the hard way as a fatal accident investigator working the midnight shift early in his career.

Gov. Jennifer Granholm was once an assistant Wayne County prosecutor, so you’d think she would know this as well. But the state she leads is in a prolonged economic tailspin – brought on by high tax rates, excessive regulation, out-of-control state spending and overreliance on a crumbling industry. And she’s not willing to fix any of that.

So, then, what to do? Easy. Encourage more alcohol consumption!

In Michigan, no problem is so serious that our leaders can’t take steps to make it even worse.

Democrat Granholm’s constituencies are public employee unions who will not hear of any change in Michigan’s policy status quo. So as always happens when people refuse to solve their real fundamental problems, the search is on for gimmicks that will paper them over.

Hello, longer bar nights.

Granholm’s latest gambit is to propose that mandatory 2 a.m. bar closings be moved back to 4 a.m., and that Sunday liquor sales be allowed to begin before noon. This is supposed to help the state’s economy in two ways. First, grocers who want to buy licenses to sell earlier Sunday liquor fork over $1,500 apiece to the state. Second, bar owners – people whose businesses surely produce less and destroy more wealth than any other – get to head home with more money in their pockets.

Tom Dunleavy, owner of Dunleavy's bar in Allen Park, tells the Detroit News: "Say you had a nice crowd at 2 a.m. and didn't feel like kicking everybody out. You could make a couple hundred dollars extra or maybe even a thousand if you could stay open until 4 a.m.”

Right, because there’s no conceivable reason to cut off liquor sales at a particular time, right? State laws require last call at 2 a.m. for one simple reason: Anyone who’s still drinking that late is blitzed. Lawmakers also know something else about the bar crowd. In spite of all the warnings, an awful lot of them drag their liquor-addled bodies behind the wheels of their cars and drive home. The 2 a.m. cutoff is an effort, and hardly a draconian one, to preserve some semblance of public safety during the most lethal period of the night. If you let these same people spend an additional two hours getting themselves even more liquored up, how safe will the roads be then?

Someone might want to remind Gov. Granholm that these same tough economic times have forced police forces across the state to cut back on manpower. Lt. Corrigan O'Donohue of the Royal Oak Police Department told the News: "Any extension of bar hours will cause a strain on police services. In Royal Oak, we've already reduced our staff by 20 percent."

In addition to being an obvious public safety disaster, Granholm’s proposal further underscores that she knows nothing about economics and the creation of value. When some drunk idiot gives $5 to a bar owner, who turns around and spends that $5 to buy more that he will then sell to some other drunk idiot for $7, he has made a profit, but no economic value has been created.

Michigan’s problems will only be solved when value-added economic activity returns here. That means that companies create products and services that actually bring added value to the experience of life, and can produce them in a way that controls costs and earns a profit.

Gov. Granholm doesn’t understand this in the slightest, but she seems to know what the bar crowd wants. Earlier in her tenure, she thought she could bring Michigan back with state grants to promote “cool cities,” which amounted to little more than an increase in the number of bars in your typical urban downtown setting.

There is a theory that Michigan is losing its “best and brightest” young people to other states because there’s not enough to do here. They’re all moving to Chicago or wherever because that’s where the nightlife is hopping. So, more bars, later bar hours, and the “best and brightest” will stay right here.

How long they remain bright is unclear if they keep pickling their brains with alcohol, but at any rate, it’s more likely the real best and brightest are leaving because of double-digit unemployment and state leaders without a clue how to solve the state’s real problems.

Somehow I don’t expect the prospective 4 a.m. bar crowd to be the people who get Michigan back on track. If they can even get themselves home, it’s a small miracle – sort of like the one Michigan needs if this is the best idea we can come up with.

© 2009 North Star Writers Group. May not be republished without permission.

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