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Downeaster riders soon won't be able to buy beer as the train rumbles through New Hampshire
By adamg on Tue, 03/07/2023 - 9:43am
Amtrak has run the Downeaster train up to Portland for more than 20 years, but New Hampshire officials only just realized people could buy alcohol not purchased at a New Hampshire state liquor store while the train briefly passes through, and they are just not having it, the Portland Press Herald reports: Starting March 20, alcohol sales on the train will be halted while in the Granite State because state law bars the sale of alcohol not purchased in state, and Amtrak stocks up in Maine.
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Comments
Guess That Whole Live Free Or Die Thing...
....is just some Trumpie BS.
The funny thing is the Downeaster goes through some of the most Sig Sauer bumper sticker on your nothing more than hockey bag toting F250 parked in your 4 bedroom ranch on a cul-de-sac part of the state. You know the J6ers who want the guv'mint out of their lives but work at places like Portsmouth Naval Shipyard.
Mooo Hampshire rides again.
Sneak your beers aboard everyone.
Amtrak is actually pretty adult and civilized
never a problem with BYOB on the Northeast Regional. Catch a show on Broadway, and have wine, cheese and crackers on the return trip.
of course it's BS
...or else NH would have been the first state in New England to legalize cannabis and not the last.
Any time I hear that motto, I recall the country
band I saw at college, with this one song of theirs told from the point of view of a prisoner serving a life sentence, having murdered his bride and adulterous lover. He is condemned to spend his days stamping out NH license plates. The chorus goes, "Live free or diiiee! Lord! Live free or die. It makes me wanna cry: live free or die!"
I heard them perform that song once decades ago, have never forgotten it.
Here's your song
Wow, thanks for this!
Your Google skills trump mine. I misremembered some of the lyrics, but that's definitely the one!
RIP, Bill Morrissey. I wonder if it was he that performed at my school or someone covering it.
live free or die
live free or die
So you'll have to get your liquor
at the New Hampshire Turnpike rest areas again, to take into Maine or Massachusetts twenty miles away, like the Good Lord and the New Hampshire legislature intended?
This has the feeling of a
This has the feeling of a bureaucrat needing to justify their employment.
The law is the law
This is a stupid law but the regulators don't get to make that decision.
Subjective enforcement is a fancy phrase for corruption.
Subjective enforcement
Do airlines need to stop selling liquor when they enter NH airspace?
Does NH have "airspace"?
I don't think individual states get to regulate their nominal "airspace". Am I wrong?
Sure
States retain rights of their airspace not regulated and controlled by the federal government. Amtrak is also a federal agency, which in this case is providing interstate travel and commerce.
See, that's the point
There's specific laws regarding airspace of which the state regulators also follow.
The regulators need to justify their enforcement in laws. They can't say, "This is a stupid law, so ignore it" even if they feel that way personally.
Can't?
Uh, no. Selective enforcement is a thing, and it's a thing that happens all the time.
Someone already pointed out
Someone already pointed out selective enforcement is quite common but you seem to be missing the point.
Yes, Airspace is controlled by the FAA and federal government where states can't make their own fiefdom rules like interstate commerce.
Amtrak is a federal agency providing interstate passenger service. State governments generally don't get to pass laws restricting the federal government.
CT
i wish that were the case, but CT won't let the acela run at full speed and local trains take precedence on CT rails.
why is it faster to drive to NYC than take the train? F'n CT (chisel it off!)
Was this also true the last time trains ran to New Hampshire
in the 1960s and earlier, before Amtrak?
I don't think so
The Boston and Maine operated that corridor through New Hampshire as late as 1965, when it decided to end all interstate service to Maine, New Hampshire and Vermont. Most of the trains through that corridor were Budd RDCs, but there were some full-service trains to Montreal and northern Maine that had grill/diner cars also served liquor.
I honestly don't think New Hampshire cared back then. So long as you weren't hanging out of the trains and causing problems, having a cold Maine brew while rolling through the Seacoast or through downtown Dover didn't raise an eyebrow. Today, the NH Liquor Board feels it's being cheated out of tax revenue; the more rational response would be for Amtrak to stock NH beers along with ME and MA beers and then collect the taxes for each state as warranted.
If taxes are the issue
why doesn't New Hampshire just assess a tax against Amtrak (or the operator of the food and drink concession) instead of banning the serving of drinks?
Good question
The last train with food and beverage service out of North Station was the Gull, discontinued Sept. 5, 1960. Service to New Hampshire using Budd Rail Diesel Cars (RDCs) continued until 1967, but they had no facilities to sell food or drink.
The Montrealer along the Connecticut River line ended in 1966, then was resumed by Amtrak in 1972.
The first New Hampshire state liquor store opened in 1934.
I don't think pre-Amtrak intercity trains collected state or local sales or meal taxes; but they did have to stop selling alcohol when they passed through a dry state. I'm not sure what they did if only some counties in a state were dry.
Solution
Amtrak just keeps a separate cooler with a couple of sixes of NH-purchased beers and cracks them out as needed. People do buy beers on the Downeaster, but it's usually like one or two. I've never seen people pounding them down onboard.
Not sure that would pencil
Not sure that would pencil out, seems like a lot of fuss to sell a few extra beers.
it's a short part of the ride
So they have to get their beverage before they cross into NH and can't get the next one until they cross into MA or vise versa. Not hugely impactful but an annoying restriction on interstate commerce that is not worthy of the live free state.
"if it’s what New Hampshire wants what can we do?"
Don't anyone tell, but I hear you can buy alcoholic beverages on flights while they traverse the New Hampshirian airspace.
I’m not a legal expert but..
I’m not a legal expert but I believe that states don’t have airspace and that commercial air transport is entirely federal
Interstate travel
Is also federal.
Constitution commerce clause something something.
Seems like that would be the governing rule.
It's an interstate train
One might assume that federal rules apply.
I don't think I've ever been charged state sales/meals tax while buy food on an Amtrak train, and I've had enough microwaved pizzas and hot dogs over the years to have noticed if tax was added.
Also, I believe that beer is sold at locations other than the State Liquor Stores, and again, that each of the 46 states that has Amtrak service have distinct alcohol laws that are probably not followed on trains (other than drinking age, which has been federalized anyway.)
According to a quick Google Search
Amtrak does follow other state's alcohol laws. Some trains won't sell beer on Sundays when the train is in certain states, etc.
Thanks
n/t
Amtrak is the federal government
I don't believe the federal government ever pays, or collects, state sales taxes.
Food and beverages on all other Amtrak trains is sold by Amtrak employees, but not on the Downeaster, where it's sold by a third party. I haven't bought anything on the Downeaster in a long time, and I don't remember whether or not I was charged sales tax.
It's not Amtrak
Food and beverage service on the Downeaster is provided by a third party, NexDine, Inc.
The Downeaster is not subject to Amtrak rules requiring that food service on other trains be provided by Amtrak employees. The Downeaster is run by Amtrak on behalf of the Northern New England Passenger Rail Authority, an agency of the state of Maine, which subsidizes it. That's probably why the beverages are purchased in Maine.
New Hampshire is acting like a bunch of d*cks. NNEPRA would be within its rights to order the train to bypass Dover, Durham, and Exeter and run between Wells, Maine, and Haverhill, Massachusetts, without stopping. The state of New Hampshire doesn't contribute a dime to the train's operating budget, although the towns of Exeter, Durham, and Dover may.
What about the Vermonter?
Some of its route passes through New Hampshire, along the Connecticut River.
This has to be
the most Massachusetts move I’ve ever seen another New England state pull.
NH has long been the lamest
NH has long been the lamest state in New England. Go try buying recreational weed or liquor from a grocery store up there.
In fact...
...you see a lot of NH plates in the parking lots of dispensaries near the state line.
And MA plates
in the fireworks store parking lots on the other side.
main troopers at NH stores
Lets not forget when Maine had placed unmarked state police at NH liquor stores who then followed people with Maine plates back to Maine and pulled them over for buying there booze in NH, also Mass wanted to charge Mass tax in NH borders store because it was not fair that people would freely travel to another state to shop.
Pix or it didn't happen
They might have done this for some small number of people who were bringing in like a truckload of NH booze, but I think this is just an urban legend.
what about
if i already have a purchased beer (say bought it right before crossing the border). Do I have to dump it when in NH?
Yes.
But filter it through your kidneys first.
This just a dispute between ME and NH
Amtrack is not involved at all as train is only operated by Amtrak for NEPRA [New England Passenger Rail Authority]
New England Passenger Rail Authority was created by the Maine Legislature
New Hampshire State Liquor Stores were created by the NH Legislature
People from MA who might be traveling on the Downeast are pawns in the chess match
Much like when then New Hampshire governor Meldrim Thomson Jr. got into a row with then MA governor Mike Dukakis over the lack of taxes on liquor purchased in NH and [illegally] transported into MA by MA residents.
Dukakis sent undercover MA State Police [disguised as tax agents] to NH to photograph MA license plates in the MH State Liquor Store parking lots just over the NH border. Thomson had the NH State Police arrest the MA undercovers [for trespassing] as they were leaving the parking lots at the end of their shifts.
Later it escalated to absurd lengths when Dukakis had Governor Thomson arrested for speeding on I-93 in MA as Thomson was heading for Logan
Thomson threatened to send the NH National Guard to Nantucket and invited it to secede from MA and join NH -- - the then President Gerald Ford had to personally intervene
This one is a proverbial -- "Tempest in a Teapot"
No Surprise here
NH sucks.
This is also the state that didn't want to pay for the downeaster service when Maine and Mass had already ponied up money when it was launched.
Of course now they want to make a few bucks on service they didn't want.
NH can go screw.
NH has already reversed the decision
from WBUR
https://www.wbur.org/news/2023/03/07/amtrak-alcohol-ban-new-hampshire
Passengers aboard the Amtrak Downeaster will be able to continue purchasing alcoholic drinks from the café car while passing through New Hampshire on an interim basis, while the train’s culinary vendor sorts through a licensing issue