Bill would allow more liquor store locations
Liquor store owners in South Carolina can only operate three locations at a time, but a bill in the state Senate aims to change that.
Under current law, chains like Green’s or Total Wines can only have three stores in the state, Free Times reported. The proposed bill would allow companies to operate up to seven.
The bill’s cosponsors told Free Times the bill would facilitate a modicum of free enterprise in an otherwise heavily regulated industry, but not all store owners agreed.
They said opening more stores wouldn’t do much to improve business, and one man, who’s married to a liquor store owner, said cheaper liquor wasn’t necessarily good for society.
Still, some chains and trade groups have hired lobbyists to back the bill.
—Thad Moore, News Editor
Pardoned Piggly Wiggly mascot shot Tuesday
Piggly Wiggly lost one of its own Tuesday.
Three years ago, “Maggie the Pig” was pardoned by the grocery store chain, but she got loose Tuesday from her pen in tiny Meggett, S.C., and a passing driver shot the pig twice with his handgun, The Post and Courier reported.
The driver was charged with malicious injury to an animal and fined almost $1,110, but he said he was concerned the pig would cause a wreck. Witnesses said they heard him say he planned to take the carcass to a nearby butcher.
On Facebook, Naomi Elizabeth Steed, the pig’s owner, who runs a horse rescue farm, said she thought Maggie was “senselessly slaughtered.”
“Surely all pigs go to heaven, especially our girl Maggie,” Steed wrote.
—Thad Moore, News Editor
Postal Service to keep Saturday service
Worry not, weekend epistlers — Saturday mail service isn’t going away.
Congress wouldn’t back a plan to cut Saturday delivery, so the U.S. Postal Service retreated from it, saying it would consider raising prices and renegotiating with unions, the Associated Press reported.
But the Postal Service’s governing board said it wouldn’t be able to hit its goals of cutting spending without ending Saturday service and it would become a burden on taxpayers, according to AP.
Existing spending legislation includes language that bans five-day-only mail service, which the Postal Service asked Congress to drop. When legislators passed such a spending bill last month, they kept the ban intact.
—Thad Moore, News Editor