Representative Hurst Response: Communities Support Needed to Make Small Buisnesses "Prime Time" Concern for Representative Hurst

I was a little surprised to read the posting from Tiffany Adamowski.  We did have a hearing on a bill on Monday in my committee and she did attend.  At the conclusion of the hearing only two of the nine members of my committee were willing to vote in favor of the bill.  With seven no votes we could not move the bill forward.   Her statement that this was a unilateral action on my part to stop the legislation is simply untrue. 

Although I understand that she supports the concept of expanding the sales of spirits to potentially 1,200 new small locations around the state it is important to note that this concept is a major change in the availability of hard liquor.  Such a significant change requires thoughtful and careful deliberation. 

Spirits in Washington State were once sold only through state owned and contract liquor stores of which there were approximately 400.  The privatization initiative a couple of years ago opened up the sales of alcohol to large grocery stores of over 10,000 square feet and allowed the auctioned state stores and former contract state liquor stores to continue to stay in operation.  One of the promises in the initiative was that there would not be a wholesale proliferation of the sales of spirits from smaller locations.

The former contract and auction stores were always in the business of selling spirits.  The 1,200 stores, like the one owned by Ms. Adamowski, only sold beer and wine and never handled hard alcohol. 

To suggest that it is a simple, minor change, to potentially add 1,200 new small sellers of hard alcohol and dramatically increase accessibility without carefully considering the public safety concerns and impact on the other small businesses who already legally sell this product  is a significant oversimplification.

Our committee will continue to look at this issue and carefully monitor developments in the market place for hard alcohol sales, as well as the concerns from the public safety community and see if changes can be made as the marketplace continues to evolve.  As to Ms. Adamowski’s assertion that I control the process by myself and can make other members vote the way she wishes, that’s not how our process of self-governance works.  As committee chair I do not have the power to make seven elected members who intend to vote no change their votes to yes because she wants them to do so.  The committee was not compelled by the testimony that it is time to move the legislation in its current form so it was not passed out of committee.    

The fact that this measure passed in the Senate is irrelevant, the Legislature is comprised of a House and a Senate for a specific reason;  to make sure that if one of those two bodies makes an error, then the other one catches it and fixes it.  This is a perfect example of how the process is intended to work.   If the House or the Senate was required to simply rubber stamp legislation from the other body without open hearings and careful deliberation, we would have a single legislative body instead of two.  This is a protection that the framers of our constitution built in to our system of self-government.

I am sorry that Ms. Adamowski felt ill used, but I believe that the hearing was open, everyone was given as much time as they wished to testify and was conducted in a respectful manner for all involved.

Respectfully,

Christopher Hurst, State Representative

31st Legislative District