New Year Wishes

I wish the PLCB would stop bragging about going from 601 stores to 608...when they used to have 760.

I wish the PLCB was less focused on hiring "good ol' boys" who know their cockamamie 'system'...instead of people who actually know liquor and liquor retail.

I wish the State Stores were even more convenient than when there were 760 stores.

I  wish that sometime, before the end of the decade, all the State Stores at least had the same name.

I wish that "wine specialists" were actually required to have formal, industry-recognized credentials before they were called "wine specialists."

I wish the people who select wine for the entire state had to have even better credentials than the "wine specialists."

I wish there was somebody at the PLCB who really knew whisk(e)y, above what they read in the labels and importer sell-sheets.

I wish that the Legislature understood that "flexible pricing" is PLCB-speak for "gouging the consumer."

I wish that the Legislature would stop mucking around with beer sales and simply let everybody with a license sell any size or quantity.

I wish that if we couldn't do that, at least the Legislature were smart enough to realize that not every gas station and grocery store wants to be a restaurant, and come up with a purely take-out license.

I wish that if we still have to keep the licenses as they are, we could at least go back to the older, higher quota of licenses per county, so that independent, Pennsylvania-owned small businesses had a better chance of getting one.

I wish that the BLCE was funded at the same level as 2000 so that all these new places could be checked for compliance...including the State Stores, which never are.

I wish that the FBI, once they complete their investigation of PLCB leadership, will come down like the Hammer of God on all involved.

I wish that the PLCB knew something about marketing to realize the exact same selection doesn't have to be sold at every single store from Center City Philly to beautiful downtown Snow Shoe, and that specialization in retail works for a reason.

I wish that the PLCB knew something about math and economics before they made decisions.

I wish the PLCB had people with real world experience make those decisions.

I wish that the PLCB and the Legislature would take a road trip across the Delaware and see what a real "superstore" looks like.

Most of all, I wish that we end this farce of "acting like a business" and let real business handle this business, and leave the PLCB free to do what government agencies are supposed to do: handle regulation and enforcement.

When something doesn't work, or work well, for 83 years, you don't "modernize" it.

Privatization fixes all of the above. Let's stop trimming around the edges and get it done.