I get really pissed when people try and argue that privatizing liquor sales will lead to more underage drinking. I’m 23 and get carded in bars, resturants, clubs, and one movie theatre. When I buy six-packs or go to a winery outlet get carded too. Anyone care to guess what the one place that almost never cards me is?
I you guessed state store you are correct. I’ve been carded exactly twice in state store. Then again do we really expect the LCB to pay fines to itself? Here in the private sector if I get caught selling so much as a single pack of cigarettes to a minor I WILL be fired. No warning, no second chance, etc. And that’s fired for cause so no unemployment either. Gee I wonder what happens to one of the LCB’s unionized civil servants? :rolleyes:
Thank you for creating this thread. A few weeks ago, I was camping in western PA when I volunteered to make a beer and liquor run for everyone. Town was only about 7 minutes away.
I was gone for three hours. Not only did the roads around this town not make any sense, but it seemed no one knew exactly how to get to the guv’mint liquor store, in spite of my stopping about five times to ask different people. Couldn’t wrap my head around the fact that I couldn’t buy a six-pack of beer, either (no one bothered to tell me to try a bar). By the time I got back to camp, I was ready to commit seppuku.
Now I understand why people say Pennsylvania is such a screwed up state. I wouldn’t live there if you paid me.
You can buy beer and wine in grocery stores in NH, and I think all night at the 24-hour ones. Convenience stores and country stores also have wine (and of course beer). Hard liquor is what you can only get at the liquor store, and the liquor stores are run by the State.
In PA, if I wanted to throw a party and wanted to get a couple of cases of beer, some tequila, and a six pack of another kind of beer, do I have to go to three stores? If I also wanted some margarita mix, do I have to go to another store?
Until a few years ago you couldn’t buy anything that wasn’t wine or spirits in a state store (no mixers, no corksrews, etc). Buy the way since all the liquor stores are government run they’re also closed on every public holiday. Not just the big ones like Thanksgiving and Christmas but on days like Labor Day, Columbus Day, and MLK Day.
Doesn’t WA state also have state liquor stores? Wine and such gets sold in grocery stores – Safeway, Whole Foods, what have you. But if you want liquor, off to the state stores you go.
And I definitely agree that the stores don’t always have the best selection.
One of the most conservative states? What? You spend a whole week in Forest County and figure the whole state was like that?
Besides the failure to liberalize the alcohol regime is an unholy alliance of left and right and green.
The union-card carrying liberals vote against privatization because the public sector unions don’t want the state store employees with their state benefits, pensions and wages going away to be replaced by minimum wage cashier jobs.
The other side of couse doesn’t believe anyone should drink.
And of course there is a third factor which is that beer distributors and bars distribute a good share of their income in the form of campaign contributions to any politicians who will listen.
The gaming lobby got it right. The slots law that they helped craft created a toothless gaming control board that allows anyone who is politically connected to own a casino. You can even get a license if you are connected to the mob. If you want a gaming license in PA, make sure a few good friends of the local pol are cut in for a limited partnership interest.
If we want free and open booze, all we have to do is craft a law that allows a members of the General Assembly to make money off it and you won’t believe how fast the opposition melts away.
Yes, but when the government shuts down, they stay open. We know where our priorities are! Screw the poor people who need food and critical services. Keep the cases of beer flowing!
In Utah, you can only buy 3.2 beer in grocery stores. Oddly enough, you can buy 3.2 beer 24/7. I find this pretty cool, but it is pretty hard to get a buzz drinking 3.2. The state liquor store actually has a fairly decent selection, better than a typical grocery store in California. The price isn’t horrible. It’s probably 30% more expensive than Costco. Of course, it’s fucked if you want to try to buy anything out of the ordinary.
I now know that the most booze that you can take on an airplane is 5 liters. I tried to bring four 1.75 liter bottles of booze on the plane via a checked in hard shell suitcase. Fucking TSA unwrapped my carefully bubblewrapped booze (Costco only sells 1.75 liter bottles in GLASS bottles!) and made me toss out a bottle. Of course, their crappy repackaging sans the removed bottle was SHIT and the tequila bottle broke and I ended up wandering around Sundance smelling like tequila for the whole week. Actually, I washed my clothes, but it really was a pisser.
It’s about 60 miles to Wyoming from Park City, which does a booming business in liquor sales. If only to be environmentally sound, they should bag this stupid concept of state sold liquour.
And here I was, envying states that sell liquor at grocery stores, and liquor stores that don’t close at nine o’clock…
Little knowing that I am in fact LUCKY, compared to the residents of Pennsylvania.
Texas does have its fair share of weird-ass liquor laws, though. Like you can’t order a drink in a bar before noon on Sundays unless you order food with it. If the bar doesn’t serve food, you can’t get a drink at all.
The rest of the time you can get a drink at 7 a.m. if the bar has the proper license.
Where I work (at a bar without food), this leads to occasional annoyed and befuddled out-of-towners sitting at my bar twenty to noon on Sunday, scratching their heads and tapping their fingers about “stupid Texas laws.”
(I kinda like saying no, though. I’m a petty person.)
Oklahoma probably has the best stupid twist on liquor laws. No state-run stores, supermarkets can only sell 3.2 beer, private liquor stores can sell regular beer, wine, and hard liquor, but no cups, ice, corkscrews or mixers. But here’s the fun part: the liquor stores cannot sell any of the products cold. So, many good quality beers that should be refrigerated until consumed sit for weeks in the wholesaler’s non-climate controlled warehouse (which can get nice and warm in the summer), before being shipped via unrefrigerated truck to a store where they sit at room temperature. Tasty. The system will never change, the handful of distributors are owned by politically powerful families.
I wonder if the dearth of good supermarkets in this state is partially attributable to the state’s arbitrary denial of their ability to sell an entire category of products, which presumably have a fairly high profit margin.
No, he’s not right. As Gigi said we can buy beer and wine in grocery stores and convenient stores. And department stores that sell refrigerated food. And at most drug stores…
The first part of my answer was kind of a joke. I like to drink, so I was expressing a kind of delighted excitement at the prospect of easily available alcohol.
The second part was serious. I am in Pennsylvania a lot and being able to pick up a bottle of wine at a mall (especially!) or grocery store while on the run would make my life much easier. Having to find a wine and spirits place can be a pain if you’re in a hurry because I haven’t seen too many. Much easier to find a shopping center or mall or grocery store.
You used to be able to buy alcohol in stores around the clock in Thailand, but get this: Now you cannot buy after midnight or – this is the weird part – from 2-5pm. That’s 2-5 in the afternoon. Something about school letting out then, and they don’t want it available to students. The smaller places will ignore the law, but larger places like Western-style supermarkets and 7-Elevens and such are more high profile and have to obey.
For the record, online liquor stores won’t deliver to Pennsylvania, either. (Part of the “no transporting across state lines” law.) I checked quite a few when I wanted to send my step-father some whiskey for his birthday.
I remember state troopers waiting at the border to Delaware when I was a kid, in order to catch people ducking across for tax-free cigarette shopping. My parents mentioned to me several times about the ones waiting for liquor runs to Jersey.
