Retail liquor was privatized in Ohio 15 or 20 years ago, but all the wholesale buying is done by the State, and the private liquor agents must sell at the price the State sets. Many liquors aren't available in Ohio. Sometimes a distributor will petition for them to sell a new liquor and the Bureau of Liquor Control may decide against it if they don't think it adds anything to the range of beverages already available here, or they don't think it would sell well enough to justify the quantity they'd have to buy. I'm not sure how the laws about the space work, honestly - standalone liquor stores sell beer, wine, snack foods, etc., without any type of partition, but grocery stores that have State liquor agencies have a partitioned-off space. (Maybe you have to be 21 to even go in the store?? I know you have to be 21 to go into the grocery store partitions.) Socialized drinking, is what it is, but privatized retail.

Retailers can buy beer and wine direct from the distributors, but they can't sell it for less than a 20% markup. (Tobacco prices are regulated the same way).

The cut-off for liquor is 20% alcohol, so many fortified wines can only be sold in liquor stores. On the other hand, there are plenty of diluted hard liquors on sale where beer and wine are sold. I can't imagine how hard up one would have to be to drink that stuff! Pre-packaged mixed drinks can be sold at places with low licenses, too. I don't *think* we have 3.2% beer any more, though I'm really not sure about that.

Everything is local option, so if someone wants a new liquor license, or wants to transfer a license they own to a new location, the precinct gets to vote on it. There are Sunday licenses for both bars and package sales, but it's a separate license, so not every retailer makes the investment, and not every Sunday license application is approved by the local voters.

Maybe they should've kept Prohibition and done it all under the table. It was so much simpler then ...