Letter to James Risch, President of the Senate, Idaho Legislature
Letter
Letter to James Risch, President of the Senate, Idaho Legislature
The Honorable James E. Risch
President of the Senate
Idaho Legislature
Statehouse Mail
Boise, ID 83720
VIA HAND DELIVERY
Dear Mr. President,
I hereby advise you that I have transmitted to the Office of the Secretary of State, with my approval, the following Senate Bill, to wit:
S 1382
within the time prescribed by law, the same having arrived in the Office of the Governor at the hour of 12:30 P.M. on March 13, 2008.
To paraphrase Ronald Reagan, "There you go again."
Once more we are making a very specific and tortured exception to Idaho liquor license policy for a particular business - albeit one that is unusually important to its community and county.
Well folks, it's time to draw a line in the sand.
This session's requests from Tamarack and others appear to be valid under current circumstances and I will not oppose them. However, with the end of the 59th Idaho Legislature it is time to call a halt to the practice of granting exception after exception to our liquor license rules. It's time to comprehensively reform a system that over too many decades of piecemeal changes has become a patchwork of special circumstances and ambiguity.
The Alcohol Beverage Control Task Force that I established a year ago is moving forward with a set of proposals that will be finalized and ready for legislative action in January 2009. In an effort that will resume shortly after the Legislature adjourns this year, the broad-based group of stakeholders, regulators, legislators and industry representatives is carefully considering the license quota system, waiting lists, transfers and private sales, issuance of licenses at the local level, revenue distribution, and enforcement.
I asked the Task Force to consider why the state should be in the business of determining how many liquor licenses are available in any given Idaho community. Why should the Legislature, the Governor, the Liquor Dispensary or the Idaho State Police have greater influence than local residents and elected officials over the character of their community?
Some will take issue with particulars of the proposed reforms. Some will disagree with the level of state involvement proposed, whether too great or too little.
Our job as state policy makers is to listen to the concerns and needs of our citizens and our communities, then craft the best, most reasonable, most sensible, most understandable and most broadly acceptable system we can for licensing liquor sales. It is my expectation and hope that the effort will come to fruition during the 2009 legislative session.
Until it does, the era of special liquor licenses is coming to an end with a successful - and I hope fast-approaching - motion to sine die.
As Always - Idaho, "Esto Perpetua"
C.L. "Butch" Otter
Governor of Idaho
Cc: Secretary of State
Source