Beer Distribution Legislation

As an inner-city beer distributor for the past 13 years, I am concerned with the implication in your editorial (April 24), “Beer Shenanigans,” that the way beer wholesalers do business is somehow inherently bad, anti-competitive and anti-consumer.

I, like other wholesalers, have worked hard and have made a substantial investment in my business in terms of dollars and the people I hire, which are predominantly minorities in my community.

Your accusation that wholesalers are anti-competitive comes from someone who has not worked in this business. There is competition among wholesalers. Exclusive territories do not eliminate the competition between wholesalers for market share within a region. Like other businesses, we have to work efficiently to keep our costs down and keep our prices competitive so we will not be undercut by others in the business. Like other businesses, we have to provide our customers necessary services or have a competitive beer wholesaler in there trying to get the business. There is nothing in the proposed legislation, which your editorial attacked, that eliminates this competition. Nor are we asking that healthy competition be eliminated.

Neither is our business anti-consumer. The consumers gain because we are delivering a quality product at competitive prices to the retailers. When we deliver at competitive prices, retailers can, in turn, price the product at competitive prices for their customers. It is here at the retail level where the consumer price is really set and where competition among the retailers will influence the price people pay for their beer.

Wholesalers also help the consumer by servicing all retailers regardless of size. Because wholesalers provide small retailers with the same service as the larger volume retailers, the small retailers are able to sell their beer at prices comparable with big retailers. Again, the consumer benefits from wholesalers’ services.

Our system of delivering beer to the marketplace has been in place for years in California. AB 1500 simply attempts to preserve this system, which has worked so well--providing consumers top-quality beer at rock-bottom prices in comparison with the rest of the country.

I don’t believe you can justify your opposition to this legislation on the basis of anti-competitive or anti-consumer arguments. Working in this business tells me it just isn’t so.

EDISON R. LARA SR.

South Gate

Lara is president of Westside Distributors.