Things the Japanese Don't See So Much These Days

[wuchan]

have plenty of beer machines and I could spit on the one-cup sake machine from my bedroom window(that thing is a life saver when I run out at 1am). No ticket punchers tho. One old practice out here is everyone, I mean EVERYONE, burns their own trash. Everything from paper to soft plastic, only hard plastic, metal and glass seem to make it to the trash spot.

[Mulboyne]

But then they allowed convenience stores to sell booze

You can only operate beer vending machines with a licence from the local authorities. Anyone can sell booze with a licence but there is a quota based on population density (Edit: it appears to be one per 1,100). A convenience store selling alcohol wouldn't have driven a vending machine out of business. If it was near enough to attract the same customers then it was most likely holding the licence for its operation. When convenience stores were expanding, they often couldn't get licences so they convinced many mom & pop liquor stores to become members of their network which allowed them to use it. When you see elderly employees in a convenience store, it's unlikely they are there as a result of some head office hiring policy. Instead, they are probably the owners of the former liquor shop who are now operating a franchise store for the chain. Tobacco licences require a separate approval which is why there are convenience stores selling alcohol which do not sell cigarettes.

[Yokohammer]

You can only operate beer vending machines with a licence from the local authorities. Anyone can sell booze with a licence but there is a quota based on population density (Edit: it appears to be one per 1,100). A convenience store selling alcohol wouldn't have driven a vending machine out of business. If it was near enough to attract the same customers then it was most likely holding the licence for its operation. When convenience stores were expanding, they often couldn't get licences so they convinced many mom & pop liquor stores to become members of their network which allowed them to use it. When you see elderly employees in a convenience store, it's unlikely they are there as a result of some head office hiring policy. Instead, they are probably the owners of the former liquor shop who are now operating a franchise store for the chain. Tobacco licences require a separate approval which is why there are convenience stores selling alcohol which do not sell cigarettes.

I thought the vending machine rule was based on distance: i.e. they had to be so many meters apart. At least that's what my local mom-and-pop sakaya-san told me (which is now doing poorly due to the proliferation of convenience stores in the area). That may have been cigarette machines though. And you're quite right about booze stores becoming convenience stores. There are a couple of those in my area. But there are also a large number that sprung up out of nowhere that now sell booze. It might have to do with local Yokohama ordinances as well, but most of the booze machines that were in the area have been taken down (trust me, I knew them all). In fact I don't think I've seen one around here in ages.

[Mulboyne]

I thought the vending machine rule was based on distance: i.e. they had to be so many meters apart. At least that's what my local mom-and-pop sakaya-san told me (which is now doing poorly due to the proliferation of convenience stores in the area).

I don't know about that but, until a few years ago, licence holders had to operate a given number of metres apart - it may have been a hundred - so any vending machine within that radius could only be operated by the licence holder for that area. When that restriction was lifted around 2001, discount stores and convenience stores posed a greater threat to mom & pop stores who responded by setting up more vending machines under their licence. The mom & pop stores claimed that inexperienced part-time staff at combini were more likely to sell alcohol to minors while the convenience store association alleged that the real problem was the vending machines. To counter that, the liquor store association urged introduced age verification on machines. However, they found, just as the tobacco retailers have discovered with the Taspo card, that this sharply reduced sales. This made many of them uneconomic to run. Rather than remove age verification, the liquor store association reached an unofficial compromise where they would pull many of their new machines in return for a moratorium on new licences. This agreement holds to a greater or lesser extent depending on the local authority.