Earlier tonight I posted on a proposed law here in North Dakota that would stop drinking establishments from having late-night drink specials.  The sponsors of the bill are claiming that they’re trying to solve public health and binge drinking problems, but a reader emailed tonight to say that there’s more going on here than meets the eye.

Namely, protectionism and rent seeking.

I’m told that some smaller drinking establishments are pulling some strings behind the scenes to get this bill passed, not because they are concerned with public drunkenness or binge drinking but rather because they’re upset that the larger bars can afford to offer bigger discounts on drinks than the smaller bars do.

I don’t have any first-hand knowledge on this, but as I pointed out in my previous post, a ban on drink specials isn’t likely to have much of an impact on the binge drinking/public drunkenness problem.  If anything making the bar drinks more expensive will just drive those who want to get drunk out of bars and in to liquor stores. 

So it makes sense that this law would be a case of smaller business owners are trying to hamstring the bigger-business rivals than an actual attempt to protect boozing citizens from themselves.  Not that it matters either way.  Government doesn’t exist to protect citizens from themselves any more than it exists to protect business from competition.