To the editor:

The story about Cork & Barrel and the Kansas Alcoholic Beverage Control was a good article about a sad situation. These are nice people who run a nice, clean store, too many nice stores, it seems. I am sure the ABC cops are also good people just doing their job. But the laws alleged to have been broken range from “hard to understand why that’s illegal” to the absurd. Business always entails risk, but venturing into the murky waters of Kansas liquor laws seems riskier than most. With these Byzantine regulations, everyone loses.

Some good local business people get a lot of grief, some law officers end up looking like heavies in a “Smokey and the Bandit” movie, and the Kansas taxpayer gets to foot the bill. Ideally, the attorney general has the good judgment to order no prosecution and the state Legislature will pass some rational liquor laws. However, I am not holding my breath. And I certainly do not feel any safer now that people cannot buy alcohol and glasses at the same place.

Mike Devlin,

Lawrence