State 'liquor stickers' may soon disappear

The Senate on Friday gave preliminary approval to a measure that would do away with the Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control stickers that are currently found on every bottle of "heavy" beer, wine and hard liquor sold by the state.

SB106, sponsored by Sen. Scott McCoy, D-Salt Lake, will save the state almost $1 million by eliminating the need for DABC employees to place 24 million stickers on bottles.

McCoy said the original purpose of the stickers was to identify bottles as having come through the DABC system. Now, however, each bottle also contains an electronic barcode on the label that is scanned for the same purpose, something McCoy described as an expensive "redundancy."

"This is an example of modern technology taking over and outstripping an old practice in a way that is a million dollars cheaper," McCoy said. He also pointed out that the stickers are relatively easy to remove from the bottles and are therefore "not a very robust system" of identification.

During discussion of the bill, McCoy brought out a bottle of Australian Shiraz wine to provide an example of the stickers for fellow Senators who may not be familiar with them, and then quickly put the bottle into a plastic sack brought to him by other senators.

"My colleagues are helping me hide this in case there are any children in the gallery," McCoy joked.

Sen. John Valentine, R-Orem, replied, "I move to put a ten foot wall around it," a reference to his pending legislation that would require all alcoholic drinks served in restaurants to be poured in a separate room.

Senate Minority Leader Patricia Jones, D-Salt Lake, congratulated McCoy for "finding ways to reduce waste in government."

The bill will now move to the House for consideration.

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