It is well known that the alcohol beverage industry is one of the most heavily regulated industries in the United States, perhaps deservedly so. The heavily regulated alcohol market we live with in the United States is our collective inheritance of Prohibition, its repeal, and the ratification of the 21st Amendment to the Constitution. The 21st Amendment delegates to the states and the District of Columbia the regulation of alcohol within their borders. A patchwork of sometimes odd, sometimes quaint, often illogical alcohol-oriented statutes and localized regulations blossomed all over the United States in the 1930s; many provisions have not been updated since.

As a result, unlike other national and global industries and markets, the U.S. alcohol industry has not evolved in a homogenous or monolithic way and resists sudden or frequent changes. Rather, it evolves and continues to evolve in small increments, state by state, county by county and city by city. Those who desire to bring about grand changes in the alcohol industry must be patient and persistent, working against entrenched regulatory schemes and unyielding vested interests like water on rock over time.

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