Fighting the Scourge of Girly Drinks

I wrote earlier about the law that prevents me from importing a six-pack into Utah. Well, the state of Utah now has its sights set on your Smirnoff Ice. The Alcoholic Beverage Commission is convinced that the makers of drinks like this are targeting kids, and so they want to remove them from the grocery store (beer and Mike's Hard Lemonade-type drinks are all we can buy in grocery stores - for everything else we must go to state-owned liquor stores). This would make them more expensive and more inconvenient for those of us who (gasp!) choose to drink.

Ridiculous quote alert:

The fruity, sweet beverages are "alcoholic training bras" because they appeal to young girls who don't like beer, said Abbie Vianes, coordinator of the Salt Lake City Mayor's Coalition on Alcohol, Tobacco and Drugs.

We also have bars here that only serve beer. The rules are more stringent if a bar wants to sell liquor. The Attorney General here wants to take the girly drinks out of beer taverns, too.

Proponents of this idiocy don't seem to be arguing that its easier for minors to buy alcohol at grocery stores than at liquor stores. Their main motivation seems to be a belief that kids will stroll through the beer aisle at the grocery store, see Bacardi Razz on the shelf, and become instant alcoholics. But you don't see them urging better enforcement of laws against providing alcohol to minors, or increasing punishments for stores that don't check IDs. Instead, they inconvenience adults with a "solution" that won't decrease drinking by minors one bit.

Of course, they could have other motivations here, such as 1) expanding the state's liquor monopoly or 2) trying to prevent everyone, including adults, from drinking.