Seems that the liquor licenses are expiring – from Powerline:

Mark Dayton’s shutdown of Minnesota’s state government is now in its third week, and so far I’ve seen no sign of it. I mean that literally: if I hadn’t read about the shutdown in the newspapers, I would have no reason to be aware of it…

…This morning, however, the Strib pulled out the heavy artillery with the revelation that bars across the state of Minnesota are beginning to lose their ability to sell beer, wine and liquor:

Hundreds of bars, restaurants and stores across Minnesota are running out of beer and alcohol and others may soon run out of cigarettes — a subtle and largely unforeseen consequence of a state government shutdown.

The logical thing to do here is to make liquor licenses last longer – or make them automatically renewed during a period of government shut down.  Of course, we can also debate whether or not the State should even be regulating the sale of things as common to humanity, for thousands upon thousands of years, as beer and wine (an argument can be made about hard liquor as it is a relatively new development…no more than 500 or so years; such newfangled things even we conservatives can wish to see regulated until we’re really sure how it works out).  Beer and wine are really just a sort of food – as common on the human lunch and dinner table as bread and milk.  And you can perfectly well keep it out of the hands of the kids without licensing the sale of it.  Away with this Puritan legacy of regulated beer…

Of lesser importance than beer (and I really mean this) is the effect this government shut down is having on attitudes in Minnesota.  The government is shut down and yet people are managing to live – this is a body blow Big Government.  The world didn’t end – it will take liberalism a long time to recover from this.  Meanwhile, with liberalism in disarray, we have an excellent opportunity to turn beer and wine back over to the complete control of the people by eliminating all government responsibility for its production, distribution and sale.  High time that the adults of America got to decide how much beer to drink, and when.

UPDATE:  The Democrat governor caves in and agrees to the GOP budget.  Let that sink in a little bit – in a blue State, with the entirety of the Ruling Class and the MSM on his side, the Democrat had to surrender when the GOP stood firm.  This can be repeated nationally.