It Is The Dawn Of A New Day In Texas Able To Buy Booze At Costco In Fort Worth & Washington

Looking through the bars of my patio prison cell on Day 9 of the next to last month of 2011 it looks like the pool has turned into an ice rink. But, it'd take at least another 10 degrees colder than the current 42, for that to happen.

I was peacefully slumbering this morning when my phone played its cheerful, unwanted wake up tune.

It was Miss Puerto Rico calling from the airport. I let the call go to voice mail. My one longtime reader may remember I used to provide taxi service for Miss Puerto Rico to the airport. That ended on the day Obama was inaugurated.

In other news, yesterday was election day in America. For the most part election days in Texas are sort of quiet. There were a lot of proposed amendments to the constitution being voted on in Texas. I don't recollect seeing a single sign trying to get me to vote yes or no on any of the proposed amendments.

Texas proposals 1, 2, 3, 5, 6, 9 and 10 were approved by the voters, while Proposals 4, 7 and 8 were rejected.

I don't know if Texas has the Referendum and Initiative method of putting an issue on a ballot.

In Washington I always had a lot of Referendums and Initiatives to vote on. A citizen, or group, in Washington, can take the initiative and put an Initiative on the ballot if they are able to get enough signatures on  a petition to do so.

COSTCO was behind an interesting Initiative that passed yesterday in Washington. Initiative 1183 removed the last vestige of Prohibition from Washington, allowing private retailers, like COSTCO, to sell whiskey, gin and other hard liquor. Prior to Initiative 1183 one could only buy those items from state run liquor stores. COSTCO spent $22 million into its campaign to get this Initiative passed.

Texas still has many vestiges of Prohibition. Some places totally dry, some totally wet, some just a little damp. I live in a totally wet zone, bordering a totally dry zone. This causes 4 liquor stores to be at the Randol Mill Road exit from Loop 820, because that is the nearest entry point from the freeway to the wet zone I live in.

The town I live in, Fort Worth, being wet, I guess, for some reason has long allowed the Fort Worth COSTCO to sell hard liquor. But grocery stores in Fort Worth are not allowed to sell hard liquor.

I don't know why.

COSTCO likely figured out what local palms it needed to grease so it could sell whiskey to the locals.

I guess I'll stop thinking about how easy it is to get drunk in Fort Worth and go swimming now.