Meanwhile, Detroit can't even give these away.
Posted on 06/05/2007 11:51:24 AM PDT by Cagey
BAY CITY, Mich. (AP) - Buying a keg for your next party is a little more expensive. Large breweries have complained about losing thousands of beer kegs a year in Michigan because retail beer customers have been selling off the stainless steel barrels at scrap yards rather than returning them to stores to get their $10 deposit back.
As a result, state alcohol officials have boosted the deposit from $10 to $30, The Bay City Times reported Sunday.
For scrap-metal thieves, anything is fair game - siding, gutters, spools of electric cable, pipes, even beer kegs. Some of the more brazen ones raid salvage yards, then sell the stolen metal back to the businesses.
Thefts of copper wire, auto parts and aluminum siding let crooks tap the market for scrap metal, where some items brought record amounts per pound in May, said Tim Neal, materials manager at a Bay City scrap yard.
"Copper prices peaked out about a month ago at more than $3 a pound," Neal said.
Stainless steel was worth about 25 cents a pound late in 2005, but fetched about $1.75 per pound in early May, he said.
It costs a beer manufacturer about $152 to buy a new half-barrel when one disappears, according to Ken Wozniak of the Michigan Liquor Control Commission.
He said a Michigan brewing company asked the commission last year to raise the $10 deposit to $90 per keg.
"The Commission thought that request was a little steep," Wozniak said. "The purpose of the increase in the barrel deposit to $30 was to ensure the return of the keg, not necessarily to cover the (beer manufacturer's) cost of the keg."
By raising it slightly above the average 12 year old allowance, they will cut consumption by kids.
Meanwhile, Detroit can't even give these away.
Paul Bunyan’s Nike.
Who-Sez-Entrepreneurship-Is-Dead-In-Michigan PING
LOL
That's what I think whenever I see one of these.
“Large breweries have complained..”
Why in the world didn’t the breweries increase the deposits on their property? If they had, the stores would have passed that along to the customers and then the return rate would be higher...Why was the government necessary in this situation?
NEWMAN: (peering at bottle label) What is this ‘MI, ten cents’?
KRAMER: That’s Michigan. In Michigan you get ten cents.
NEWMAN: Ten cents!?
KRAMER: Yeah.
NEWMAN: Wait a minute. You mean you get five cents here, and ten cents there. You could round up bottles here and run ‘em out to Michigan for the difference.
KRAMER: No, it doesn’t work.
NEWMAN: What d’you mean it doesn’t work? You get enough bottles together...
KRAMER: Yeah, you overload your inventory and you blow your margins on
gasoline. Trust me, it doesn’t work.
JERRY: (re-entering) Hey, you’re not talking that Michigan deposit bottle scam again, are you?
KRAMER: No, no, I’m off that.
NEWMAN: You tried it?
KRAMER: Oh yeah. Every which way. Couldn’t crunch the numbers. It drove me crazy.
I know, only cost me ten bucks!
My thoughts exactly. This is a market problem requiring a market solution.
No, it stayed the same, unless you lose the keg. Then it's more expensive.
If anything, it may be less expensive. Does anyone think that material costs aren't included in the price of the beer?
Bay City (Keg) Rollers
State governments regulate the hell out of the beer industry. Some even dictate how much profit a retailer can make or must make off a six-pack or keg.
I know, but still think there is no place for that level of government control.
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