NO on I‑1183 campaign gets big boost from Wine & Spirits Wholesalers of America

The effort to pro­tect Wash­ing­ton State from Cost­co’s newest liquor pri­va­ti­za­tion scheme (Ini­tia­tive 1183, which will be in the Novem­ber bal­lot) has just received a mas­sive resource boost from a pow­er­ful nation­al trade organization.

Last week, the Wine & Spir­its Whole­salers of Amer­i­ca wrote Pro­tect Our Com­mu­ni­ties (the cam­paign to defeat I‑1183) a series of checks total­ing $3.6 mil­lion. The con­tri­bu­tions rep­re­sent more than nine­ty-five per­cent of the total raised, with the remain­der com­ing from orga­nized labor and the Demo­c­ra­t­ic Party.

The Wine & Spir­its Whole­salers of Amer­i­ca say they oppose Cost­co’s Ini­tia­tive 1183 because it “is designed to dis­able an effec­tive reg­u­la­to­ry struc­ture that bal­ances con­sumer demand with appro­pri­ate con­trol over the dis­tri­b­u­tion of alco­hol and the licensed play­ers in the Wash­ing­ton state market.”

The whole­salers’ state­ment also not­ed: “A sim­i­lar­ly ill-con­sid­ered dereg­u­la­to­ry ini­tia­tive backed by Cost­co was reject­ed just last year, but they have cho­sen to ignore the mes­sage deliv­ered by the cit­i­zens of that state and their elect­ed rep­re­sen­ta­tives who draft­ed leg­is­la­tion to allow for lim­it­ed pri­va­ti­za­tion while main­tain­ing strong reg­u­la­to­ry control.”

In 2010, Pro­tect Our Com­mu­ni­ties suc­cess­ful­ly defeat­ed two liquor pri­va­ti­za­tion schemes with the help of the beer indus­try, which wrote mul­ti­ple sev­en-fig­ure checks to finance an extreme­ly effec­tive cam­paign that hit the air­waves early.

Cost­co and its alco­hol prof­i­teer allies can hard­ly com­plain about the con­tri­bu­tions. After all, their ini­tia­tive is no grass­roots upris­ing; they bought the sig­na­tures they need­ed (either with out­right cash or with in-kind labor) and they will doubt­less put up more mon­ey to fund their own adver­tis­ing cam­paign in the autumn.

NPI strong­ly oppos­es Ini­tia­tive 1183 and urges sup­port­ers and read­ers to stop greed by vot­ing NO on 1183 this Octo­ber or November.