As part of addressing the income shortfall for the state, the Utah legislature required the Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control to reduce hours of some stores and put off both remodeling and opening stores. Along the lines of across the board budget cuts, I suppose. But in this instance it is a bad idea because it further reduces state income. In Zion, all sales of liquor, wine, and most beer is through state stores exclusively. (And just in case anyone had doubts about it, the Legislature now requires that the stores' signs clearly include 'State' or 'State of Utah' before 'Wine Store'.) The fact is, the wine stores not only make a significant amount of money for the state, the income has been rising. So, reducing hours and so on do not save money -- the steps cost the state. Retaining the same hours and expanding would increase income to the state. But I suppose the money would be worth less, coming from the demon-controlled apostates and gentiles.
Ideology is quite important to the Legislators -- we have statutes purporting to authorize eminent domain proceedings against federal lands, and barring federal law enforcement activity unless authorized by the state. So much for the Constitution.
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