We hadn’t seen these examples when we made light of the assertion that drinking was up when alcohol sales at package stores went up. The data problems include the TP effect (hoarding), fear of stores being shut down, saving trips to the store, and missing the impact of bars. The WSJ editorial board has some examples of this happening. First they look at Pennsylvania closing its liquor stores:
Pennsylvania’s Liquor Control Board announced March 16 that liquor stores would close the next day. The state hoped to keep residents at home, but instead Pennsylvanians flocked to buy booze while they still could. Lines stretched around the block, and sales spiked to $29.9 million in a single day—“the most spent on booze in Pennsylvania in one day, according to complete sales records dating back 12 years,” the Philadelphia Inquirer reported last week.
Giving everybody just one day to stock up is a history making foolish governmental policy. Of particular interest to us is the date. The Pennsylvania spike happened during the week used to support higher sales in the previous article. It also points out the folly of government prohibitions without citizen support.
Denver trying to do the same thing is even sillier. It might be hard to leave a big state like Pennsylvania but it is easy to leave Denver. Still they tried:
Denver saw a similar rush on March 23 when Mayor Michael Hancock announced that liquor stores would not be considered essential businesses. “It’s created a safety issue in the short term,” Argonaut Wine & Liquor co-owner Josh Robinson told the Denver Post. “The mayor said not to panic buy, but that is exactly what he encouraged people to do by shutting us down.”
We conclude that major purchases of alcohol could be a rational decision based on observed governmental actions. That is one of the reasons why sales might not match consumption. We still don’t understand TP. Perhaps folks behave differently than us.