I recently learned that in the State of New York, a convenience store needs a license to sell beer and wine. This isn’t required in many states, but there’s more. It’s a different license than what’s required for selling liquor. And a liquor store can’t sell lime juice. So, if someone wants to make gin & tonics at home, they’re forced to go first to a liquor store for the gin, and then to a convenience store or grocery store for the lime juice.

Apart from this bureaucratic crap being an inconvenience to customers, it puts a severe limit on small business owners as well. If someone wants to buy liquor to make any number of drinks that require something other than just liquor, they have to go to two separate merchants– even though only one of them is actually in the business of selling that person what they really want to buy. And that merchant is losing lots of money in potential sales of products specifically needed for consuming certain types of liquor-based products.