Could your local ABC store turn into a mini Barnes and Noble with wine and cheese instead of coffee and sweets?
That prospect was mentioned last week when Del. Shannon Valentine asked the ABC/Gaming Subcommittee of General Laws if ABC stores couldn’t sell magazines about wine in Virginia ABC stores.
Hey, Assembly Anonymous thinks that would be neat. Virginia ABC stores, if anything, are totally functional so as not to glamorize the use of alcohol.
Del. Terrie Suit’s “mini Barnes and Noble” question could spark a dramatic makeover of the state-owned liquor stores. Lounge chairs, wine and liquor samples, cheese, crackers and, of course, magazines about wine—only Virginia wine, of course.
But, alas, the subcommittee members got all tangled up in clichés such as “this would be opening a can of worms” and “this would let the camel’s nose under the tent” and, “no, more than the nose, the hoof, too!”
HB1199, the committee decided, was just too risky with all those chances of worms, camels, camel hooves and, worst of all, liquor stores becoming hangouts for magazine reading! Appalling.
An ABC spokesman worried that if the camel got his nose under the tent, it may not be “A VIRGINIA CAMEL!”
To spare Virginians such scary prospects, Del. Valentine’s bill was buried in the subcommittee. But, if they find a Virginia camel, her bill should surely be revived—an added attraction for ABC stores!
A tale floating around the General Assembly is that Republicans, who are in anguish about seat losses, called in a BIG GUN. .. . an advisor to Newt Gingrich.
Help, help, the Rs begged.
Anyone familiar with Gingrich should know that the advice would not involve cookies and milk or even “do unto others as you would have them do unto you.” The advice would more likely be “‘do unto others as you have been done to.”
So the Rs, some of whom learned the art of politics from former majority leader Dick Cranwell, now get to practice the “done to” school. And, apparently, the BIG GUN passed on even more tricks, some Cranwell may never have thought of.
That would be to wring every political drop out of a bill that mentions YIKES, the dreaded words (for business people supposedly) collective bargaining.
Del. Adam Ebbin, not in the General Assembly during the Cranwell years, had a front row seat last week for the Cranwell/now Morgan Griffith/Speaker Bill Howell School of Hardball Politics.
Anonymous bets Ebbin won’t be putting in any more bills that look friendly to unions and bargaining.
he word is the BIG GUN’S advice was to send to the House floor a bill that would get lots of attention since the Rules Committee sent it with NO recommendation and NO vote. Arriving on the House floor with no committee recommendation (the usual procedure) would force a floor debate and votes on unions as well as collective bargaining.
Well, it worked. AA hopes BIG GUN gets a big fat check and no doubt he will or did. For two days, newspaper headlines featured the flap. “Union Vote. . . . Partisan rift,” and many more along those lines. As one reporter wrote, the House became a “political sandbox.” All they needed was some sand to throw at each other.
There was much talk in the sandbox scramble of bullies and bullying which, AA believes, may have helped Del. Lionel Spruill’s bill about fake bull testicles hanging on cars.
While the economy droops and state revenues are really drooping, bull talk may not be all bad… Bullish would be good!