Alcohol Industry Survey Gets the Answers it Wants

But, what if the right questions were asked?

Seventy-eight percent (78%) of Americans believe the “Three-Tier System” is “working well,” according to the results of the recently released Center For Alcohol Policy’s 2023 National Alcohol Regulation Sentiment Survey. The Center For Alcohol Policy (CAP) is a front group for and funded by the National Beer Wholesalers of America. So, really, what could go wrong with this survey’s reliability?

But it’s this question of how Americans feel about the three-tier system that interests me the most. The rest of the survey wants to know whether Americans believe it is important for alcohol to be regulated, whether they think the states should be doing the regulation, how happy they are with selection and the number of outlets where alcohol can be procured, whether Americans think drunk driving and underage drinking are important issues and other questions that really don’t need a survey to answer.

But, what about the three-tier system? The developers of the survey, New Bridge Strategy, had the good sense to realize the survey takers would generally have no clue what “three-tier system” means. So, teeing up their question about the three-tier system they prefaced it with this:

“As you may know, most states in the U.S. have regulations requiring that producers of alcohol sell their products to licensed local independent distributors, who then sell the alcohol to individual retailers such as bars, grocery stores, liquor, and packaged goods stores.”

Then comes the question: “Would you say that this system is generally working well or not working well?

As I mentioned above, 78% of respondents said “working well”.

But, what would the results have been if instead of asking if respondents thought the system was working well or not, they asked the following questions:

Do you support this three-tier system’s ban on producers of alcohol selling alcohol directly to retailers?

Do you support the three-tier system’s ban imposed on retailers from buying alcohol directly from producers and forcing them to only purchase from wholesalers?

Do you support the three-tier system’s ban on allowing consumers from having wine shipped to them from out-of-state wine retailers?

Do you think it is fair to let wine stores in your state ship wine to consumers but ban wine stores in other states from shipping wine to consumers in the state?

Given that the states’ “three-tier system” has this impact on consumers, producers, and retailers, do you support that system?

Now, I can’t imagine for the life of my why the wholesaler-funded CAP doesn’t include the above questions in their annual survey if what they really want is to discern the public’s view of alcohol regulation. I can’t imagine why an explanation of the three-tier system that emphasizes the restrictions on commerce isn’t provided to survey respondents. I can’t imagine why CAP’s survey doesn’t do any of this. Can you?

CAP’s survey is a joke. It is the equivalent of a push poll where those asking the questions are attempting to solicit a specific response—one that supports the restrictive and discriminatory worldview of the National Beer Wholesalers Association. This is why the survey shop conducting the effort doesn’t accurately describe to respondents exactly what the real-world consequences of the three-tier system are. If they did, the beer wholesalers and their front group CAP would find themselves in a position of having to release a that reveals actually no more than 30% of the American public supports the three-tier system of alcohol regulation. Of course, even if they did ask these better questions I list above and didn’t get the results they wanted, we’d never see those results. They would never be published.

But I have an even better idea. Maybe the Center for Alcohol Policy should survey industry members as to their feelings about the three-tier system. The result of this survey would be even more devastating to the Beer wholesalers and their brethren who carry boxes of wine and spirits. The level of satisfaction expressed by survey takers would be near 5%. It would be nearly 5% because the survey takers would actually understand the three-tier system, rather than being introduced to it with a 32-word explanation.

As I’ve said many times before, and as most people understand, the three-tier system of alcohol has significantly retarded the growth of the American alcohol marketplace and severely limited innovation within the industry.

If you are interested in why this is the case, you can visit this website: www.three-tiersystem.com