I didn’t like the idea of privatizing liquor sales for all sorts of reasons. After visiting eight retail outlets last Friday, my opposition may have softened but not much.

It’s going to take some time to get used to seeing gin and whiskey and vodka across the aisle from the chips or near the tiki torches.

Really, the displays aren’t all that big, maybe an aisle front and back or just something up against a wall. The ones I saw on that first day of private sales in nearly 80 years had some gaping holes in the displays or just minimal inventory. That will change, but still you have to ask, why bother?

The answer, of course, is the bottom line and one more lucrative addition to the product line.

I took my liquor tour as a reporter, but also as a curiosity seeker, much like others who stopped into the stores just to gaze on the spirits and check out the prices.

It seemed particularly busy at Fred Meyer on Rainier Avenue. I was watching the shoppers as much as seeing what was for sale. A young man and an older one shopping together caught my attention. They also caught the attention of store employees who obviously and not so obviously were keeping an eye on shoppers, too.

I liked that enhanced security. Here’s another piece of that.

Anyone would quickly figure out that shoplifting a fifth of whiskey was fruitless if you had to break the bottle to remove the cap lock. That’s one reason my opposition softened. Other retailers need to pay attention to Fred Meyer’s efforts to keep control of who buys liquor at its stores.

And, no, I don’t own stock in Fred Meyer. I am a little miffed the busy former state liquor store at Renton Center is moving – because Fred Meyer wouldn’t give the new liquor-license holder a lease for the space. But maybe that’s why Freddies is so busy, a built-in customer base used to buying nearby.

I stopped by Costco in Tukwila over the weekend to do some shopping, but really to see how the mega-wholesale store that paid mega-bucks to pass Initiative 1183 was displaying the liquor. I will say that Costco had the best selection, but still far short of what I would expect to see in former state-run stores (if the new owners do it right) or contract liquor stores like 4th Street Wine and Spirits.

Anyone who has lived where liquor is sold almost everywhere, in such places as California and Alaska, probably doesn’t see what the big deal is. Only about a quarter of the nation’s population lives in states where the sale of alcohol is somehow controlled.

But this is a big deal.

Anyone who has been touched by the dangers of alcohol – a drunken driver who killed a loved one or a family member wracked by alcoholism – hates to see it proliferate. Anyone who worries about minors having more potential access to liquor hates to see this happen right at graduation time.

Liquor is a “controlled substance” – a drug that can kill. Now it’s part of our everyday lives, right next to the chips and tiki torches. I am not for prohibition. I just favored some control over this drug.

Now it will become normal and accepted. It doesn’t deserve that, especially in the eyes of our kids.