You've got to hand it to them, our liquor loving trio stayed true to form to the very end. In a lengthy interview with the News Herald, liquor leader and retired banker, Ed Bell is quoted as saying "We worked hard to get it passed. It would have meant about a half a million dollars a year that could have gone to schools, law enforcement and different entities in the county."  The deceit began with getting signatures for their petition and never stopped. Lets do the math on Mr. Bell's statement that liquor stores would provide about half million dollars a year.

The much discussed liquor tax is a five percent inspection fee that is collected by the wholesalers from the retailer during distribution. The Revenues are then remitted by wholesalers to the municipality monthly.

Now, Mr. Bell predicted $500,000.00 in tax revenues per year. To collect $500,000.00 with a 5% tax would require the sale of $10,000,000.00 of liquor per year. Given that greed is the driving force, we could only assume their liquor stores would be open at least six days a week at least eight hours per day. Let's say the average price of liquor is $15.00 a jug.  So, to generate the predicted half million dollars per year, the Three Amigos Liquor Stores would have to sale 266 bottles of liquor per hour or 2,130 bottles per day or 12,780 bottles of liquor per six day work week. This would equal nearly every registered voter in Loudon County buying one bottle of liquor every twelve days or half the registered voters buying two bottles every twelve days. Can you see how ridiculous Mr. Bell's statement really is?

According to the Knoxville Wholesale Liquor Tax Report, not one of the forty-five liquor stores in Knoxville even came close to ten million dollars in sales even though Knoxville's population is ten times greater than ours. More likely than not, liquor store sales in Loudon County might generate thirty-five or forty thousand dollars in taxes per year. However, the profits for the Three Amigos Liquor Stores would be many times greater than any tax collections.

Who really stood to gain?

-v-