Should the government retail monopoly on wine and spirits in PA be abolished? If so should alcohol be availible in grocery stores and supermarkets? What about just allowing the sale of beer or wine in food stores and restricting hard liquor to specialist stores? Should the min/max quantity restrictions on beer be lifted (allow distributers to sell 6-packs and bars to sell more than 2 6-packs)?
Ideally I’d favor letting grocery stores sell any kind of alcohol 24/7 (ala Nevada), but that’ll never fly in PA. So I propose privatizing the state stores. Grocery stores would be allowed to sell beer (& possibly wine) will the newly private liquor stores can sell any kind of alcohol (including beer). Licenses would continue to be issued on a quota system; at first there would be no more private liquor stores than state stores now (650 approx). Current beer distributers would get first dibs on new liquor stores. None of the age restrictions (21 to buy, 18 to sell) would change. Hours of sale would remain the same (though grocers could sell beer for more than 5 hours on Sunday).
I don’t drink, but I do have occasion to buy alcoholic beverages from time to time.
I’d love nothing more than to see the state-store system abolished and the sale of alcohol to be permitted in grocery stores and package liquor stores. But that won’t fly for two reasons:
There is a fairly sizable (at least according to their data) temperance movement that equates accessibility to Instant Alcoholism! and
State-store employees are civil servants with a better-than-average salary and benefits package. If the PLCB were to go away, these people couldn’t find a comparable compensation package at Joe’s Discount Liquor. So they have every incentive in the world to keep the status quo.
I would like to see beer and wine sold in other stores, especially wine because whoever the hell runs the PLCB’s wine department has horrific taste.
Opening it up to other stores might mean that some of them provide a better selection of tastier wines and wines from different places. As it is now, you go into a Wine and Spirits (what the state stores are called) and no matter which one it is, they’ve all got exactly the same selection of a bunch of stuff from California (which is almost entirely comprised of Chardonnay and Cabernet) and bunch of jug wine and box wine. But no, apparently having the ability to buy good wine will turn me into a raving alcoholic.
The other laugh riot is that in order to ‘discourage binge drinking’, PA does not allow the sale of anything less than a case of beer at a store. You can get an overpriced six pack from a bar or a sandwich-and-six shop, but if you don’t want to spend $9 on six beers, you have to go to the beer store and buy an entire case. ‘We don’t want people buying a twelve pack because they might drink too many beers. Let’s force them to buy a case instead.’ Fucking brililant, aren’t they?
There’s arguments to be made on both sides. Here, in Ontario, the provincially run stores provide a marvelous selection. Mind you they collect some marvelous tax revenues too. However health care is provided by the province, so you might argue that the ones providing funding for health should be able to restrict – through higher taxes and somewhat restricted operating hours – the distribution of alcohol to the masses, and especially under-aged drinkers.
It’s a bit of a circuitous argument, but the system actually works quite well here. I wouldn’t wan to see in privatized.
Man, I hate going to Pennsylvania. Not only is it cold in the winter and un-airconditioned in the summer, it’s actually more of a pain there to get a beer than it is here in South Carolina. To pick up a couple beers for the family group in our hotel I had to go into the skeeziest bar ever, cinderblock painted purple, and figure out how to negotiate this transaction. And picking up the little things my grandparents need, good lord! One place for the soap and hearing aid batteries, one place for the Cokes they keep for the aides, and a whole nother store for my grandpa’s jug o’ pink wine! And then once I saw a billboard for the Women’s Christian Temperance Union, an organization I’d thought had gone out with bloomers and celluloid collars! You guys really ought to be embarassed, honestly. I get all ticked off here when I remember I can’t buy anything on a Sunday, I can’t imagine if there was only one dealer in wine and they were the state.
I’ve lived in PA my entire life and this whole state run liquor thing is something I’ll never really understand. I don’t know of one single person who thinks its a good idea. If you’re a minor and dying to try your luck there is always NJ right over the bridge so I don’t see any good reasons to keep it regulated. Its a simple case of “Because we’ve always done it this way…”
As far as I’m concerned the LCB workers’ union can fornicate themselves with an iron stick. They’re a bunch of crybabies. They have a better deal than any other retail workers in the country. You could fire all the civil servants at a store and hire people off the street and most people wouldn’t even notice the difference. And they’re not even that strict on carding people. I turned 21 early this year and have only gotten carded once! Compared to almost every time I go to a bar, club, or restaurant and need to show ID. I guess the LCB can’t fine itself and disiplinging civil servants is hard. As a compromise between full privatization and state-control Harrisburg could allow beer & wine in grocery stores and distribute spirts through a network of agents (who get a comission). I understand Ohio and Vermont do that.
I don’t think this system will change anytime soon for the reasons already stated. Changing anything in PA is like turning a battleship. Alcohol is tied to a lot of special interests, one of which is the commonwealth.
Beer distributers in PA have licenses that are granted by the commonwealth. And from what I understand, there is a fixed number, so it’s sort of like a monopoly. I know of one family in particular that passes these things down through the generations like others pass down family farms. You can buy one, but only from a private owner. Only one to a family, but that never stopped anyone from putting another one in someone else’s name. I went to school with the kid whose dad owned the local beer distributor, and his family was the wealthiest in town. His empire grew when his daughter got married and he bought a license for her and put it in his son in law’s name. I called the PLCB to see about acquiring one of these licenses, and that’s how I learned they are sold like property. Things may have changed as this was a while ago, but I doubt it.
A LOT of money in beer. And alcohol. I don’t see it changing
I’ve never heard a good argument for why the system should stay the way it is. It’s bizzare, Byzantine, and doesn’t seem to create any benefit. The argument that booze in grocery stores leads to alcoholism and debauchery amuses me. I grew up in Virginia. It was the eastern love handle of the Bible Belt. All your alcohol needs could be met in Safeway, Giant, Shoprite etc. If there was an epidemic of drunken orgies, I missed it.
Where in PA were you? Sounds like the outer boonies!
State stores have actually improved in the last few years with some stores having a much better wine selection and Sunday hours. I don’t really care if the Wine and Spirits stores stay under the state. Remember when they were State Stores and you walked up to the counter and they went and got you what you wanted?
South Carolina is annoying in that they close the ABC stores so early… 7:00 p.m.? Ugh.
OR. and WA. both have state stores and the prices are ridiculous. When I was on the road I would pick up my liquor, by the case, in CA. for just about half what it cost at home. I now buy it on a military installation and still save about 30%.
It’s not just the prices; it’s also the lack of selection. For example, currently there’s not a bottle of yellow Chartreuse to be found in the state, and it’ll be a good month and a half before they get any more in. This is despite the fact that they know there’s a good demand for the stuff.
Yeah, you put in the application, take the civil-service exam, and pray for an opening.
I don’t remember if there are a fixed number of licenses for beer distributors, but the neighborhood bar where I live (and which was closest for those Sunday-game purchases) sold its license to a Chili’s which does not sell six-packs at all. So we lost a local business which provided something of a valuable service in favor of another foofy chain restaurant with mediocre food and no six-packs.
I mean, if you’re going to have a fixed number of licenses, at the very least, they should a) stay in the community and b) offer the same services. If the old place sold six-packs, the new place should, too.
That union, BTW is AFSCME-the American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees, and is one of the bigger unions in the US. That union will fight hard to protect the job of Altoona McBoozeclerk, et cie.
As a former PA resident who has been subject to the whims of the PLCB’s weirdly limited wine selections for decades, I say abolish the state stores, burn them to the ground, and salt the ashes. All those clerks in their government neckties and Ban-Lon shirts can go find real jobs like the rest of us.
Oh, and let there be package liquor stores, and allow beer and wine sales in grocery stores, like in civilized states. If the blue noses don’t wanna have no Sunday sales. let 'em have that concession as a sop; I don’t care as long as sales are available until 10 PM or later the other days of the week.
Nope, I grew up in the town where their world headquarters ís located, and they are very much alive (though they can’t seem to keep up the sign on their building - it gets stolen all the time). Apparently these days they are branching out into opposition of pornography, gambling, and same-sex marriage.
Evanston, IL had no package liquor store of any kind until 1984, and still only has 2 package goods stores for a town of 70,000. A handful of restaurants have liquor licenses. When I was growing up, the only restaurant liquor licenses were for beer and wine, and even then you had to order a full meal to order a drink. Evanston and several surrounding suburbs (and Chicago, for that matter) still have restricted hours for the sale of package goods. (Which never made sense to me; if someone is going to get stinking drunk, wouldn’t you rather have them do it in their own livingroom with a case of beer or a bottle of vodka than have them possibly drive to a bar to do it? though I suppose they still can - they just have to stock up ahead of time).
However, as bizarre as this system was (especially as you could reach a liquor store from anywhere in Evanston within a 10-minute drive), there’s never been a government-owned system of alcohol sales anywhere I’ve ever lived. The state seems to be content with getting its pound of flesh via extortionate alcohol taxes rather than extortionate retail markups. Might as well tax sugared soda; it’s probably at least as big a public health menace as alcohol.
As Pennsylvanian I can truly tell you that the PLCB is not only incompetent, it is way behind the curve.
Times were, until only about 10-12 years ago, that the State Stores were ‘Full Serve’. Meaning you went up to a counter and requested the liquor you wanted. This assumes the sellers weren’t sleeping in the back, not caring in the back, not in the back or front. They’d take their sweet time getting the stuff, bring out the wrong stuff half the time. Their knowledge was useless and any new brand would have no exposure in PA.
Basicly before they (grudgingly) went to self serve, if you wanted to stock up on liquor for a party you would essentially surrender and evening to the State Store. IT reminded me of the stories of long lines for things in the old Soviet Union.
You can get a keg, but then, you have to have a tap. (My uncle had one in his garage-until he caught his neighbor sneaking into his garage and stealing from it.) I remember going to the Hampton beer outlet as a kid with my dad or my grandfather and my uncles. They’d give out little lollipops with smiley faces for the kids. My grandparents had a tap connected to their fridge down in the cellar.
Of course, my family’s so freaking huge a case isn’t enough. (I don’t drink so I don’t know how much there is in a keg-for all I know, it’s the same amount)
But yeah, the state stores are pretty damned archaeic. About the only good thing I could think of was when I was working retail-I was glad I didn’t have to deal with carding drunks and the stupid blue laws about sales on Sundays. That’s about it.
kurahee-what’s worse, the beer outlet I mentioned above once lost their license and only recently re-opened. It’s not because of anything they did, it’s because somehow, the state had given out too many licenses, or whatever, so I guess they took some away. What the blue fuck is up with THAT?
I live in Philly and all I know is that a bottle of 10 year old Laphroig single malt scotch cost me about $40, sometimes less. In NJ I’ve seen it sold for $40 to $80.