"Given our need inside this building..."

Pennsylvania Liquor Control Board member Mike Negra may have inadvertently told the truth (he'll probably be fined for that). Quoted in a story about the PLCB's recently announced price hikes that ran in several state newspapers, Negra let it slip that the PLCB's main mission is the survival of the PLCB, its jobs, stores, and cushy bureaucratic positions. How else are you supposed to interpret this quote?

"Given our need inside this building and throughout our agency due to rising costs of employee benefits and so forth, a lot of that is out of our hands, we felt it was something we needed to do," said board member Mike Negra. "That's what is behind it."

Any PLCB bureaucrat

You see that, right? "Given our need inside this building..." None of the usual window dressing and self-sacrificing bullshit about how the PLCB does so much for the state. Nothing about the General Fund, nothing about the state's financial crisis, nothing about the State Police, nothing about actual alcoholism prevention (what about the children???), and certainly nothing about you, you poor shlub. No, the prices are going up because the bureaucracy needs to fund their ever-increasing operating costs. 

We told you, over and over, that "flexible pricing" would mean "higher pricing." We take no joy in being right, we just wish someone would have listened.

Now can you finally call your rep and tell them it's time to privatize this mess? All of it?

Big PLCB Price Hike May Be Coming!

The PLCB is playing hardball with their suppliers, and it looks like part of the process is threats in the media. Check this out from a recent story at KDKA's CBS Pittsburgh site titled "Prices Of Best-Selling Wines & Spirits To Rise."

The PLCB’s Elizabeth Brassell says the suppliers have been told the price for their product is going to go up on the shelf, “unless our suppliers of those products offer us lower acquisition cost to avoid the retail price increases.”
Brassell says the price increases affect “the best-selling 150 brands of spirits and best-selling 150 brands of wine.” In other words, probably your favorites.

You know what we have to say about that, right? Welcome to Flexible Pricing...we told you so! You know why it's going to affect the 150 best sellers? Because those are the only PLCB products covered by Flexible Pricing! Everything else is still under the mandated markup. 

Here's what the PLCB thinks is going to happen. The PLCB is going to hammer the producers in negotiations! They'll balk at lowering prices, because they know the PLCB isn't going to lower the price on the shelf (because they promised to make a LOT off of this), the PLCB will make this childish "don't make us raise prices!" bid in the press, figuring the producers will lower prices, and then they can say "look, your prices stayed the same, we are HEROES!!" while sucking off all the difference to cover their spiraling operating costs and hold off privatization for another legislative cycle...and the producers will call their bluff, and give 'em nothing.

And the PLCB will just have to raise prices and look like the inexperienced amateurs they are, we'll get screwed, border bleed will explode, and maybe, maybe we'll finally tell our representatives to get rid of this moldy old piece of Prohibitionist crap.

The PLCB Act .39 Special, only one made.

And here's the beauty of it all. If I were the producers... I'd be saying "Screw them. Jack the prices, blame it on them, and maybe Pennsylvania will finally wake up and get rid of these idiots. This is our chance!" Run the long game, booze folks, run the long game, and help us dump these rubes.

Because you know what I'm going to do when the prices go up at the end of August? Hop in the car and go buy booze in Delaware. Why not come along? Let's dump these rubes!