That doesn’t seem likely, either, since I know I see pitchers on the bar whenever I go to the Escapade when I’m visiting Altoona. And if anyone tries to watch their liquor law compliance, it’s a gay bar in non-big-city PA.
Is it a case of “the older the state, the weirder the liquor laws?” I say this because I have observed that a lot of the strange laws are in states back east. In California, you can buy liquor, wine and beer at grocery stores, and at all hours of the day and night. Gas stations sell booze, sometimes. whereas places like Penn seem to make it next to impossible for somebody to find something to drink. Is there any correlation?
Possibly. It stands to reason that our whole legal infrastructure is older than the states out west, and a lot of stuff, once it gets into that infrastructure, just ends up acquiring infinite legal inertia and never getting removed.
It could just be that our Liquor Control Board tends to the Draconian Fascist style of governance, though…
I’m sure the rumors that one is required to sieg heil before presenting a petition for license is false, really…
It seems a lot of the laws listed here prohibit ‘brewed beverages’, so does coffee/tea/ iced tea technically qualify?
It dates back to the 1930s. After prohibition was repealed most states set up licensing regimes allowing private merchants to sell alcohol like they did before prohibition. Some states choose set up a government monopoly along Canadian/Scandinavian models. Most control states only have a monopoly on hard liquor (PA and Utah are major exceptions). Most licensing states still restrict hard liquor sales to dedicated liquor stores. Also is PA the only control state without any form of private contract agencies (private merchant sells state products for a commission)?
Ah. So be it, I missed the separation in my quick readthrough. I stand corrected as applies to beer. But stand vindicated as applies to liquor.
Also, wineries may sell their own wines in PA. As far as I know, that’s the only exception for non-beer alcohol in the state.
BTW, the liquor store you went to was probably self-serve. Back when I grew up in PA, they didn’t have those. It used to be that the state liquor stores had a bunch of shelves with one display bottle of each item they had for sale. You decided what you wanted, then told the clerk who went and fetched it out of the storeroom.
At least a lot of the beverage distributors are drive-through. You drive in, tell the guy what kind of beer you want, and he tosses a case in the trunk for you. You don’t have to get out of the car.
From the Wikipedia article, it looks like New Hampshire, too:
Yes and no. Over time, we have managed to build up lots of little interests thanks to to the liquor laws.
State store employees are unionized and wouldn’t want to give up good state jobs for what would effectively be a minimum wage clerk in a liquor store. Pro-labor politicians won’t shake up that relationship.
Conservative anti-booze politicians don’t want anyone drinking and certainly not on Sunday so they resist the efforts on those grounds.
MADD (Mothers against Drunk Driving) also lobbies against loosening up the booze laws and pplay well with suburban politicians.
Owners of delis and bars are making a mint by selling six-packs at inflated prices. Beer distributors are also doing very well for themselves thanks to limited competition. They lobby politicians who will listen or accept campaign contributions.
We have outlet stores near the borders with NJ, DE, OH with better selection and prices since folks who live near the borders would drive across state lines. We open a few of the stores on Sunday now (about 10%). Now the liquor stores are opening up outlets in grocery stores, but in a walled-off section and there aren’t many.
All the silliness is a result of folks trying to loosen up the system one piece at a time. Full repeal of all the idiotic laws? I think they’ll legalize pot first.
Still, no one’s going to stop you at the border to search for contraband Everclear.
Well, when I lived in Philly, it was absolutely illegal to import alcohol into PA for personal or any other use. People would cross to Jersey to get booze, it being much cheaper than State Stores and the state would periodically have a campaign to stop them. Once, it became a literal Keystone cops affair. The PA State Poleese sent a patrol car to watch a liquor store near the Jersey side of the Tacony-Palmyra bridge and when they saw a PA licence plate in the parking lot, they radioed the number to the cops on the PA side who would look for and arrest the miscreant. Naturally, the liquor store owner got upset about this and complained to the Jersey police who then arrested the PA cops for … unlicensed guns. This ended the stakeout. Sure the cops could have crossed the river without their guns, but they would sooner have done without their pricks.
While the 21st amendment doesn’t ban interstate transportation of liquor, it certainly permits any state to ban transport of liquor into its territory. I don’t know if they still are, but when I was growing up a few states were legally dry. Mississippi and Oklahoma were the two I recall. I remember seeing an official “Black Market Liquor License” in a bar in Mississippi. And there was one small suburb of Philadelphia (called Yeadon) that was legally dry. Interestingly, it was also illegal for Jews to own property in that town–and this was enforced till some time in the 50s.
The 1950s!! How the hell could that law still be enforced in the 1950s!? 
Or did landowners just refuse to sell to Jews?
Many housing developers put deed restrictions on their developments, to keep out Jews and other “undesirables”. Many houses still have them, although they are now unenforceable.
Also, realtors would only show houses in those areas to people who weren’t obviously Jewish (by name or other signal (mogen david pendant, earcurls, yarmulke). There were areas in those days where one side of the street would be shown to Jews and one side to white Gentiles.
Wow. Yuengling. There’s a word I never expected to show up in the Dope!
I grew up in a town very near the Yuengling brewery.
Oh, I thought he meant the town itself had an ordinance banning Jews.
It comes up often enough:
Search for “yuengling” gives 65 threads (including the “one booze forever” that is currently receiving posts).
For the misspelled “yeungling” gives 27 more (again, including the current “one booze forever” in IMHO).
Oh, and I just had a Yuengling with dinner tonight, too.
I haven’t figured out Pennsylvania liquor laws yet…
I’m in Greensburg right now, about 55 miles East of Pittsburgh and for beer, it’s pretty much as you said. I get mine from a deli which can sell beer. You can buy up to a 12-pack no sweat. Not a bad price, either, around 11-12 dollars. But if you want two, they have to be rang up separately, and you have to remove the first 12-pack and put it into your car, then come back and buy the next one.
Now, back in 1996, in Scranton, Pennsylvania, the only place you could get beer was at a state store. And you could ONLY buy it by the case. Go figure.
(Brings to mind a funny story, sorry. A fellow consultant in Scranton got lunch at a Price Chopper there, which had a state store next door. This was during the Blizzard of '96. Temps were areound 3-6 degrees F. He got a case to save a trip and just put it into the trunk of his Hertzmobile. Wound up working late…till about 8 at night. Guess what confronted him when he popped the trunk back at the hotel?)
Really? I’ve lived in this state since 1979 (when I was 3) and I’ve never, ever seen beer sold at a state store.
Umm, as far as I know it is illegal to sell any alcoholic beverage in the state of california anywhere between the hours of 2:00AM and 5:00AM. This Wikipedia article seems to back me up on that but it’s not a very definitive cite.