Yeah, that's essentially what happened here in Oregon.

And the 2nd chapter of it is after the ballot measure passed, the state liquor commission drug its heels for a couple years, because most of their executives are far more conservative than the median voter here (a side effect of a lot of them being Salem locals vs Portland, but anyhow).

Eventually the state legislature got fed up with the obstructionism and passed a "ok, we're just doing it how CO did, stop stalling" bill.

And here we are. The sky didn't fall.

There's a lotta ways ballot measures can go into stupidity, but this is an instance where it helped force the bureaucracy to align with the majority voter position.

>(a side effect of a lot of them being Salem locals vs Portland, but anyhow).

Because their industry is in bed with government so their priority #1 is coordinating with the people of that industry. The actual "value producing" activity of buying, distributing, selling liquor and managing those relationships is a sideshow.

You see this in every deeply regulated industry.