PA wineries can also sell direct to the public on-site, and can open a limited number of off-site satelite stores anywhere in the state. You’re right about state stores being hard to find. For example instead of being in the local shopping center with the supermarkets one might be still be located in an old building downtown long after shopping habits have shifted.
Buying beer is even weirder. In addition to bars & restaurants beer distributors can sell direct to the public, but only by the case or keg. Now bars & restaurants can also sell to the public, but there’s a limit of 2 6-packs per transaction. To buy more than two you actually need to buy 2, then carry those outside, and then go back inside to buy 2 more. I’m not making that up. You’re also paying the same markup customers who drink onstite pay.
Recently some supermarkets have managed to sell beer by getting their snackbar licenced as a restaurant (they have to allow you to drink in the dining area). Another leftover from the '30s is that every single brand of beer (& every variety) must be registred with the Liquor Control Board to be sold in PA. This can lead to LCB raids where bars get fined because of minor spelling variations between what’s on the label and what’s registered with the LCB.
It has to be a separate store. Even the Surdyks cheese shop is run with walls and a different register. The Byerlys out in Golden Valley has a liquor store attached (or used to, its been a while since I’ve been that direction) - there is a Rainbow with a liquor store near me - but you won’t be paying for your steak and your bottle of wine at the same register or within the same room.
Yep, that’s right. I don’t think about it too much because I get all my booze from a warehouse-style liquor store. The only law that really irks me is the Sunday one.
Not the liquor laws so much as the sheer mass of taverns–one could make an excellent roadtrip around the exotic multiple taverns in the teeny tiny towns of ruralish Wisconsin–well, maybe a roadtrip wouldn’t be the best idea. If Utah’s small towns don’t have places to get a drink, Wisconsin’s do. Poor joke about balance in the universe and all.