Reality check: how is "modernization" working out?

The end of February marked eight months gone of the fiscal year, and just under seven months of Act 39's "modernization" of the state's police-enforced monopoly on wine and liquor sales, changes that Governor Wolf trumpeted as "historic."

So things are booming for the State Stores now, right? Well...not exactly.

Remember how bailment was going to cut inventory costs and save the citizens all sorts of money? It may have but it didn't last. Inventory cost went up over 10% so far this year and has now gone up over 46% since bailment was implemented in 2012. It will certainly pass pre-bailment amounts next year with a modest 3% increase. For the same period of time, the inflation rate went up 6.2%. (2012 Inventory $175,902,668; 2017 Inventory (so far) $257,285,382; Pre-bailment inventory $265,816,891)

Still, with all that inventory they must be making more money right? Sorry! Total Operating Income is down almost 5% year to date, while total assets squeaked out a gain of 4.2%. Meanwhile, Total Liabilities jumped almost 16%, from $803.7 million to 930.5 million. (And you know who has to cover that; you and me, the taxpayers.) Total debt is up almost $50 million more than at this time last year; $264,454,330 or about $26 million in additional debt than at the end of last fiscal year. To be fair, the PLCB statement has numerous notations about 'See Note X, Table Y', but they don't provide what those notes are. Are they valid reasons, or just lame excuses? The public doesn't know, and the PLCB clearly doesn't think we need to; it's kind of like their selection, if they don't have it, we don't need it.

The Never-Ending PLCB Story!

The PLCB is selling more product while making less money. In desperation, they're dipping into reserves to make a big payment to try and fend off  privatization, blowing smoke as thick as possible so you don't notice that they're going even further in the hole with liabilities approaching a Billion dollars...all the while remaining as incompetent as ever.

The benefits of modernization? I'm not seeing any evidence of that extra $137 million the Governor said they would make, and I'm willing to bet I won't, with only four months left in the fiscal year.

How many reasons do you need to get rid of this broken system and replace it with one that works for the consumer?

April Inventory Idiocy

I'm a Scotch guy, and I know a fair amount about it. Although they have a statewide monopoly on selling it, the PLCB doesn't...and I'm going to pick on them for that.  How incompetent/stupid/'we don't care' are they this month? Let's take a look.

I'll start off with Glenmorangie single malt Scotch whisky. The PLCB lists 25 bottlings of Glenmo on their website between on-line, in-store, SLO, and of course, "out of stock." So how many do you think you could actually get?

Well, there are nine out of stock, some of which we will never ever see again; inventory padding, really, just like the Jack Daniel's examples I pointed out here. So that leaves sixteen...right? Not exactly. The PLCB likes to double count the exact same item that they have on the shelf...and what they can supposedly only get by SLO.

Here are two examples. First, the Quinta Ruban:

It would seem that cutting and pasting the picture is beyond the ability of the people who do the inventory, and why is the price different? And before you even ask; no, there's only one expression of Quinta Ruban.
 
Next! The Nectar D'Or [a favorite of Lew's ...but not bought from the PLCB!]:

They still can't figure out how to post the exact same picture in two different places, but at least the price is the same this time!

So now we are down to fourteen. Whoops! One is supposedly "Coming Soon," so we're down to thirteen. Now how many do you think you can actually get?

Well, two are listed as "On-Line Exclusive," which may or may not mean you can find one or two in a store. (The PLCB has made that mistake more than a few times.) Are they really there? Looking at the inventory listed in the current Product Catalog, they aren't listed at all, but other out of stock online exclusives are — like the Glenmorangie Signet which the Product Catalog says is available,  but SLO and the FWAGS website says it isn't. So which is it?

Then there is the 18 year old New World which FWAGS says is out of stock but the Catalog says is available. Do these people have any idea what they're doing?

We really don't know HOW many of these are actually available. Who can say, since the inventory, like the rest of the PLCB, is entirely screwed up.

Why do we continue to put up with this incompetently-run "business" which can only make a "profit" with a police-enforced monopoly and by gouging the people they are supposed to serve with artificially high costs and variable pricing?

End the insanity, Tell your Representative to support HB 1075 and get the state out of this mess and back to what is considered normal by the vast majority of the states.