Friday, April 3, 2020

Time for a Change.org

With the State Stores closed, and the PLCB's website essentially non-functional -- 

With restaurants and bars across the state reduced to take-out business --

With the PLCB refusing to service any but the largest accounts (while the Wolf Administration tells Pennsylvania that we should look to the private market to meet the demand caused by the closed State Stores...while denying that market the right to sell spirits)

With thousands of businesses on the brink of failure, tens of thousands of people unemployed -- 

Someone has to do something. 


Why not you? Sign this Change.org petition, asking Governor Wolf and the Legislature (or the PLCB, why not?) to immediately allow the sale of wine and spirits to-go (or local delivery) by all licensees, including beer distributors, through the end of 2020. Give them a chance to make the money that will allow them to stay open, employing some people, and giving others hope for re-employment when the crisis ends.

Buddy, can you spare a signature? 
Before you say, 'Oh, those Change.org petitions don't change anything,' last week a petition just like this one succeeded in getting the government of Ontario to allow restaurants to sell wine and beer to go. We can do that here, just as quickly, just as easily.

Until then, Pennsylvanians will continue to cross the borders, spreading the disease. Those taxes will be lost to the state, where they could help pay unemployment benefits, while the PLCB flounders, trying to serve the whole state from three warehouses with a patched-up website (while the wholesalers who service the PLCB's operations have their offers to help rejected), literally filling only hundreds of orders out of hundreds of thousands of attempts to place an order. 

Is this a total solution? No.
Will this save every restaurant, every bar? No.
Will it adequately compensate every beer distributor for the damage to their business? No.

Is it better than what the State's doing now?  Hell yeah. 

Over 11,000 people have signed as of April 14. This is not a fringe position. 

Please. Sign the petition and share it. Thank you.

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