Utah Stories Show

Utah liquor laws are considered some of the wackiest in the country, with now the blood alcohol content level being 0.05 percent (the lowest in the country), and along with our 3.2 allowable liquor content in beer sold in supermarkets, Utah is now losing most national breweries beers in the grocery stores because all other states now allow higher percentages in excess of 4.0% by volume.

Senator Jerry Stevenson is now the liquor czar in the Utah State Senate and he wants to change this. He wants to pass a law that will allow grocery stores to sell beer with alcohol percentages up to 4.6%. This would dramatically change the liquor landscape in Utah. Currently all beer with alcohol percentages above 3.2% must be sold in state-operated liquor stores. This would free up valuable shelf space from liquor stores, because this would send most beer to supermarkets. It would in-turn create more opportunities for more local wineries and distilleries. 

More people die and end up in emergency rooms in Utah on red air days than any other day. Our poor air quality is probably the most serious environmental problem we face in Utah and very little is being done about all of the industrial polluters along the Wasatch Front. Why is this?  In this wide-ranging episode, we speak to Marty Gray a compliance manager for the Division of Air Quality for the State of Utah. We ask Marty all of the most difficult questions regarding clean-air policy mainly: why don't we do something meaningful about our huge numbers of industrial polluters? MagCorp emits 8 million pounds of chlorine gas into our airshed. Why is this okay? Why instead does our State Legislature and Governor believe that all of the focus should be on motorists and folks who burn logs to heat their homes? We delve into the idea of moving the refineries and Kennecott smelter out of our bowl-shaped valley. And ask why the current clean air policy seems to adversely affect the poor (by making vehicle emission standards difficult to attain for the poor) and favor the rich, by doing little to nothing about our smelters, refineries and heavy industrial polluters.