Colorado Beer, the EPA at 40, and Seattle Zoning

Colorado Beer

Colorado bars and dine-in restaurants may be banned from selling light beers.

Policy Analyst Michelle Minton explains that grocery store owners are pushing for the ban because currently under law, they themselves are only allowed to sell light beer.

“Currently, Colorado grocery stores can sell beer as long as it is less than 3.2% alcohol by volume. In recent years grocery and convenience store owners have made a push, challenging the laws and asking that they be allowed to sell full-strength beer-currently only available in liquor stores, restaurants, and bars. Liquor store lobbyist have been able, thus far, to thwart such attempts and last year, after another failed effort, grocery store owners and their supporters in the legislature amended a bill that would require the liquor laws in the state to be enforced to the letter.”

EPA at 40

The Environmental Protection Agency is now 40 years old.

Adjunct Scholar Fran Smith relays the history of the agency.

“It came into being under a Republican president, Richard M. Nixon, and opened its offices on December 2, 1970. In January of that year, Nixon had signed the National Environmental Protection Act, and on the last day of December 1970, he signed the Clean Air Act of 1970. Fast forward to the year 2010, with an EPA now with almost limitless powers in the environmental arena — regulating greenhouse gas emissions, policing carbon dioxide as a pollutant, and expanding the purview of the Clean Air Act, without congressional approval.”

Seattle Zoning

Proposed legislation in Seattle will remove some restrictions on real estate development in the city.

Policy Analyst Marc Scribner says the proposal isn’t as good as it sounds.

“While I’m all in favor of removing restrictions on the types of structures developers are permitted to build and regulations that limit what owners can do to their real property, this plan will likely augment some of Seattle’s nastier restrictive land-use regulations, particularly those that seek to ratchet up density and promote ‘transit-oriented’ development (i.e., anti-car development) by government fiat.”