The Difference is What They Steal From You

I did a short post on this for the "Abolish the PLCB -- Rewrite the Code!" Facebook group. If you missed it there (and you really should join), this is the full version.

I'm about to go out shopping for my Labor Day get-together (planning ahead, as the PLCB minions always nag about). Phone in hand, I'm checking prices, just on the rare case that the PLCB put something I want on clearance. Because that's the only way they ever beat Total Wine's pricing. No surprises: no clearance deals, and nothing I wanted was on sale, or the difference might have been greater.

I usually go to New Jersey, but the Total Wine in Towson, Maryland was closer, and even with the so-called "Free State" (what bitter irony) charging a 9% sales tax on alcohol it worked out to about the same total cost as New Jersey, but with less driving time. This is a big store at 30,000 sq.ft. A true Superstore unlike anything in Pennsylvania. They also sell beer — like any real liquor store would — and as a bonus (for me, at least), they sell cigars, too. If Total Wine has a variable pricing scheme, it at least appears to favor the consumer with lower prices, and not just the owners. Competition will do that.

Here's the Pennsylvania version of variable pricing at work. Jack Daniel's is the largest selling American whiskey nationwide, and in both Pennsylvania and Maryland. If you compare the prices on big brands like that, keep this in mind: every dollar difference is what the PLCB is stealing from you with variable pricing. You know that Total Wine isn't losing money. They're set to overtake the PLCB in total sales shortly, so they must be doing something right, even though they have to deal with competition and not the easy ride of a police enforced monopoly.

Dare to compare:

Kendall Jackson Chardonnay Vintner's Reserve California PLCB $15.99, Total $9.97 - $6.02

Maker's Mark Straight Bourbon Whisky 1.75L PLCB $59.99, Total $44.99 - $15.00

Kim Crawford Sauvignon Blanc Marlborough PLCB $11.89, Total $10.97 - $0.92

Apothic Red PLCB $12.99, Total $7.97 - $5.02!

Tito's Handmade Vodka 80 Proof 1.75L PLCB $34.99, Total $28.99 - $6.00

Jack Daniel's Old No 7 Black Label 1.75L PLCB $46.99, Total $39.99 - $7.00

These are common choices, big sellers. Nothing out of the ordinary or esoteric to skew the results. It does show how badly we are being treated, how badly the PLCB is managed, how badly variable pricing is being abused...and how much the PLCB lied to get it. We told you this would happen. And here it is, in black and white.

End the charade. Privatize.

What could Tennessee Wine and Spirits Retailers Association v. Thomas mean to Pennsylvania?

I am not a lawyer, and some or all of my thoughts could be right or wrong, so maybe this post should be filed under wishful thinking, but...there seems to be a crack in the control wall. It's from the hammer blow struck by the Supreme Court's decision in Tennessee Wine and Spirits Retailers Association v. Thomas, handed down on June 26. Take a look with me and see what you think. 

The future of the PLCB?

The facts of the case:

To sell liquor in Tennessee, you need a license from the Tennessee Alcoholic Beverage Commission (TABC). That's pretty normal...in states where private liquor stores are allowed. But there was a catch in Tennessee. Under Tennessee Code, to get a license, you must have been a resident of the state for two years. There was a ten year residency required to renew a license, so don't plan on leaving. And yes, the same requirements were there for corporations.

The case stems from two license applications that did not meet the residency requirement. The TABC was planning to approve their applications anyway...until the Tennessee Wine and Spirits Retailers Association informed TABC that if they did, they planned to sue. (You know...to protect their competitive advantage.) The TABC preemptively went to court to determine the constitutionality of the requirement. The district court ruled that it violated the dormant Commerce Clause of the U.S. Constitution (Been saying that about the PLCB for years! -- Lew). The Sixth Circuit affirmed, and it was off to the Supremes, because the Association wasn't giving up on their anti-competitive lawsuit. 

Cracking the wall around the 21st Amendment

The Supremes Say: 

In a 7-2 decision (Justices Gorsuch and Thomas dissenting), the court found that: Under the dormant Commerce Clause, notwithstanding the Twenty-First Amendment, a state may not regulate liquor sales by granting licenses only to individuals or entities that have met state residency requirements.

The 21st Amendment has long been held to allow states free rein on writing laws controlling the sale of alcohol within their borders. Section 2 of the Twenty-First Amendment states: “The transportation or importation into any State, Territory, or possession of the United States for delivery or use therein of intoxicating liquors, in violation of the laws thereof, is hereby prohibited.”

But a number of Supreme Court decisions since the 1990s -- 44 Liquormart, Granholm, etc. -- have been chipping away at the absolute nature of such control. Tennessee Wine and Spirits takes that quite a step further. The Court’s Commerce Clause jurisprudence holds that “a state law that discriminates against out-of-state goods or nonresident economic actors can be sustained only on a showing that it is narrowly tailored to ‘advance a legitimate local purpose.’” Tennessee’s residency requirement clearly favors residents over nonresidents, hard to justify as a "legitimate local purpose" in the face of the Commerce Clause.

That's just what the Supreme Court found. The Court noted that at the time the Eighteenth Amendment (nationwide prohibition) was ratified, it had already been established that the Commerce Clause prevented states from discriminating against the citizens and products of other states. Against this backdrop, when the Twenty-First Amendment was ratified, “the Commerce Clause did not permit the States to impose protectionist measures clothed as police-power regulations.” Thus, while § 2 of the Amendment gives states latitude with respect to the regulation of alcohol, it does not allow them to violate the nondiscrimination principle.

(A discrimination, maybe, against every citizen and entity who would like to sell alcohol in competition with the state's police-enforced monopoly?)

The Court concluded that protectionism is not a legitimate local purpose and that the residency requirement “has at best a highly attenuated relationship to public health or safety.”

My Opinion
Our state law does discriminate against out-of-state citizens and out-of-state economic actors. It also imposes police powers to maintain and enforce protectionist measures. Read the beginning of the Liquor Code Section 104(a):"This act shall be deemed an exercise of the police power of the Commonwealth for the protection of the public welfare, health, peace and morals of the people of the Commonwealth and to prohibit forever the open saloon, and all of the provisions of this act shall be liberally construed for the accomplishment of this purpose."

In the above decision, the Supreme Court held that "Protectionism is not a legitimate local purpose" and stresses the REGULATORY authority, not monopoly authority of the state. But does that make Pennsylvania's Almighty Liquor Code invalid? That just might be the next question the Court will have to decide. How much does the 21st Amendment give the states the right to impose protectionist, monopoly, discriminatory measures, instead of regulation that allows the intent of the Commerce Clause? How much does it matter if the state allows private retailers or only state store sales?

As I said, I'm not a lawyer. But it does make me think of what might be coming down the road at some point. I think that Costco and Total Wine teaming up will have the resources to get it done and none too soon for me.

Privatize.

Don't We Deserve a Better Board?

If we have to play by the PLCB rules...could we at least get a better set of players?

Back in 2015 in the Annual Report (page 2), the vision of the PLCB was stated as: "Be recognized as the best-in-class wine and spirits retailer, distributor and regulator in the United States."

Which meant that they wanted to be better than Utah, the only other wine and spirits retailer, distributor, and regulator in the United States. Not a high bar, considering Utah is practically an anti-alcohol theocracy. Four years later, how are they doing? Let's start at the top and go from there.

The Pennsylvania Liquor Control Board has three members, none of which over the past 85 years has any previous knowledge of the liquor industry or about running a 2 billion dollar enterprise.

We have a Chairman who has no experience with even a million dollar business, let along something the size of the PLCB. He did make it to Congress, and served on the Livestock, Dairy, and Poultry subcommittee, and Transportation and Infrastructure committee, before the citizens decided that he wasn't doing the job they wanted and voted him out. Since there isn't much call for somebody who's chummy with with politicians, and knows a little about Livestock, Dairy & Poultry, the PLCB was a perfect place to put somebody who was owed a couple of favors.

Governor Corbett appointed Republican benefactor Mike Negra to the board. Mr. Negra does have a history of being involved in multiple successful businesses, so at least he has a concept of what is going on, but no actual hands on with the liquor business, or anything the size of the PLCB.

Lastly we have the newest member and first woman ever to serve on the board, Mary Isenhour. Although you wouldn't know it by looking at the PLCB website. Here it is, over a MONTH after her confirmation, and the PLCB still hasn't decided if she rates being included with the other board members. (Let's see how long it takes for them to include her once this is published.)*

Keeping the public informed through transparency is sadly not the way the PLCB works.  Remember that it took over 100 days before they removed Michael Newsome, and that was only after I poked them with a stick again. Newsome might still be there if I hadn't said anything.

What are Isenhour's qualifications? She was Gov. Wolf's Chief of Staff and a campaign aide. Her business experience is like the others, desperately lacking in knowledge and size. She replaced Michael Newsome, who was Gov. Wolf's CFO in the furniture business -- can't get more qualified to sell liquor than that...or can we?

Remember how we were comparing the PLCB to Utah's State Store System of Stores? So how does the Utah DABC stack up? They have a seven member board that's appointed, but there is also an advisory board of seven members...who must come from defined specific areas of expertise. The Governor can't just willy nilly pick his favorite dog walker to sit on the Advisory Board. Utah specifies that the advisory board members are selected from the following areas of expertise.

Retail Alcohol Industry — Wholesaler Industry — Manufacturing Industry — Restaurant Industry — Utah Substance Use and Mental Health Advisory Council — Alcohol or Drug Related Enforcement — Division of Substance Abuse and Mental Health — Alcohol or Drug Abuse Prevention and Education

The Utah version of a Superstore

Another view. Pretty nice, right? 

It is almost certain that since this system was adopted every Utah DABC Advisory member is far more qualified than any that have ever been appointed to the PLCB. This doesn't mean that Utah hasn't had their share of people of limited competence on the Liquor Board. The Governor selects the seven members of the Liquor Board, so it can be and likely is as full of hacks and cronies as Pennsylvania. The difference is that the Utah board can't go off the rails making arbitrary decisions without an adult from the Advisory Board watching them. No deciding that 12 packs are cases, no robot wine armies, no variably price screwing the citizens, and no being over a Billion in debt. Oh, and they have had women on the Boards for years already.


End the PLCB jobs program - PRIVATIZE


*True to form it only took the PLCB 42 days to finally put up a picture.  Not quite as bad as the 102 days it took to take down the board member she replaced.

PLCB - 85 Years to Get It Moving in the Right Direction and They Still Fail

Those of us who have put up with the restricted system of alcohol access in Pennsylvania would expect to see some results from the 85 years of the state's social experiment. The results are in, but no one's talking about them (except us), because the PLCB fails miserably. Using data from the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, Newsweek ranked the states by their alcohol use.

So far it ain't working.  Look at the states on our border:

1. New York - Lower consumption than Pennsylvania
2. New Jersey  - Lower consumption than Pennsylvania
3. Ohio - Lower consumption than Pennsylvania
4. West Virginia - Lower consumption than Pennsylvania
5. Maryland - Lower consumption than Pennsylvania

If you don't succeed, quit after failing 80+ times.

Only Delaware has a higher consumption rate than Pennsylvania! But that's not really fair, because these rates are based on sales, not actually tallying people's drinks, and we know that a significant portion of sales in Delaware are from Pennsylvania residents in search of better prices, selection, and service. Those superstores on the border with Pennsylvania aren't there at random.

Is this the PLCB's fault? It has to be: there is no alcohol that isn't under their control. They are responsible for how beer is sold, they just don't do it directly, exactly the same as the alcohol regulators in other states work. Even their report on underage binge drinking shows they aren't doing what they are supposed to be doing. Pennsylvania's rate is worse than the national average, and not getting any better.

The State Stores are never checked for underage sales - yea!

Maybe the DUI and DUI fatalities make up for it.  No, you don't want to go there. You'll just be disappointed again; more proof that the Pennsylvania system isn't working.

If they're not "controlling" drinking, what is the PLCB doing? Surprise! They are a jobs program ingrained deep into state government, protected by politicians dependent on union money and votes. It has nothing to do anymore with protecting the public, nothing to do with enforcement of the border (what, 3 arrests last year? Wow...), nothing to do with service, and certainly nothing to do with treating the public fairly.

No, the only thing the PLCB is interested in is squeezing the citizens for more money. Prices increase when better deals are brokered, in the name of "variable pricing," which was sold to us as a way to lower prices of popular brands. No! It's a way to make more money, but not for the State, it's to cover their ever-increasing operations costs!  What other business decreases their number of stores by 25%...yet has more employees?

They don't even know their own name! Are they Wine & Spirits Shoppes? Pennsylvania Wine & Spirits ? Fine Wine & Good Spirits? We paid $3 million for the Fine & Good, you'd think they would want to use that everywhere. Might as well have saved that money -- our money -- and stuck with what most people call them even without a sign - State Stores.

PLCB Sales

PLCB Liabilities

The people in charge have no experience in the business. Prices are raised arbitrarily -- everything is done arbitrarily! -- and customer service is unimportant, because they have no legal competition. They've had record sales almost every year, but they're deeper in debt than anytime in their history...and it doesn't matter, because in the end, the taxpayers are really the ones responsible for that debt.

We, the citizens, deserve better. We are not safer, we are not better served, and we are not satisfied.

PRIVATIZE NOW.

And the winner is...Everybody but Pennsylvania.

Nice to know that the second largest wine retailer in the U.S. (at the moment) only influences a captive monopoly citizenry and nothing else.

Yeah, the PLCB keeps talking "world-class" and walking "second rate." That's certainly the impression you get from Infowine.com's annual list of the top 100 influencers in wine: not one PLCB employee is among them. Numerous other people in retailers like K&L (California) Total Wine (soon to be the #2 retailer ahead of the PLCB) and Costco (currently #1) made the cut. The list includes Masters of Wine (none in the PLCB - ever), winners of  the James Beard Foundation medal for the nation’s outstanding wine and spirits professional (none in the PLCB - ever), Members of the Guild of Sommeliers (none in the PLCB - ever) and innovators from across the country (none in the PLCB - ever...and no, the wine kiosks don't count).

I was part of the Livestock, Dairy,
and Poultry subcommittee. Of course
I'm qualified to be in charge of liquor!

No, Pewnnsylvania gets brainstorms like "A consortium of control states all buying from the PLCB", Wine Kiosks (never forget!!), using buying power to raise prices instead of lower them, and hiring a probation officer to run the whole operation. Just what are those free states thinking with their convenience, selection, and real certified professionals working to expand the boundaries in wine? Fools. They could be selling their customers wine that didn't make the cut in the real world like the PLCB does, and positioning it as some sort of benefit.

Just more examples of how the PLCB can never lead, never bring the citizens of the Commonwealth the same standard that the majority of people in the US enjoy. Just because mediocrity is well lit does not make it what the people want or deserve. People need government to regulate the safety of products, to make sure they aren't abused by things beyond their control, and to insure clean water and air.

They don't need government to decide what wine they're allowed to buy.

Privatize.

Let's talk New Jersey just a bit

This is a blog about Pennsylvania's drinking problem -- the PLCB. But sometimes we look at how other states do it, either to see how it's done right, or how it's done wrong. Today, "done wrong" is the New Jersey Division of Alcoholic Beverage Control, and their recent "crackdown" on limited brewery licenses...which was followed by an amusing 180 when they were brought to heel.

Let me explain. A limited brewery license is a relatively new thing, an adjustment to the NJ Booze Code that was just passed in the Garden State in 2012. I'll save you the trouble of looking at it: it's a license for breweries that produce under 300,000 barrels a year, and allows them to sell to wholesalers or direct to retailers, sell directly to consumers on their premises (by the drink, or in quantities up to a half-keg at a time for off-premise), and give limited amounts of free samples. The license is an annual fee, between $1,250 and $7,500, depending on the size of the brewery.

There are two restrictions in the law. On-premise sales must be "in connection with a tour of the brewery" (which has been interpreted to be as simple as signs on the brewing equipment or a three-minute instructional video). And "The holder of this license shall not sell food or operate a restaurant on the licensed premises." And that's it. 

And yet...last month, David Rible, the director of the NJ Division of Alcoholic Beverage Control (ABC, and why does it say "control" if they don't have state-run stores?) took it upon himself to arbitrarily issue a restrictive ruling that suddenly limited that "limited license" with a load of restrictions that seem to go way beyond the NJ legislature's original intent of "in connection with a tour" and "shall not sell food." 

Rible's ruling on consumer freedom

According to Rible's ruling, the limited license holder was now restricted to 25 "events" per year; "Trivia night" is given as an example of an "event," but so are "live" television display of sporting events, and each event must be approved by the ABC. The license holder may only do 12 off-premise events in a year; beer festivals are not included, but events in the brewery parking lot are. They are allowed to host up to 52 "private events," but only in a walled-off area. These "rulings" make things a lot less fun, but then Rible just got stupid. Yeah: David Rible got stupid. PLCB-level arbitrarily stupid.

The food thing got crazy. No food trucks are allowed, which...how? Why can't a food truck park in the lot? Then this one is just a killer: "No restaurant menus of any kind shall be placed or maintained on the licensed premises of a Limited Brewery." Which, one, in the era of GrubHub and Yelp is just stupid and pointless, and two, would seem to violate all kinds of commercial free speech.

Then there's this one, which is just weird: "A Limited Brewery licensee shall not allow, permit or suffer other mercantile business, such as "pop up' shops, bazaars or craft shows, to occur on the licensed premises." Sounds like Rible doesn't like hippies.

Upshot: there was a huge uproar from consumers, breweries (and I suspect the legislature), and within about a week, Rible was back-pedaling like mad. The whole thing was suspended, and now the Legislature is going to revisit the limited license. (And some brewers are pleased with this! Be careful what you wish for...)

Sigh. This is exactly the kind of crazed arbitrary rulings the PLCB loves to make, regardless of consequences. Rible is not a judge, he's not a legislator, he's certainly not the governor. But he took a law, and simply rewrote it. He presumed to know what the legislators really meant when they said "in connection with a tour" and "shall not sell food," and that was "don't take business away from complacent tavern owners." 

Rible's Library of Arbitrary Decisions and Policy Mistakes

Whoops. Did I say that out loud? Yeah, it sure looks like he did this to please tavern owners, who felt they were being gored by this limited brewery license. After all, because New Jersey has the same stupid limits on licenses that Pennsylvania does -- only worse! -- they had to pay a LOT more for their license, often over a million dollars. And that doesn't seem fair. 

Well, it isn't. But it's not the brewers' fault, and they shouldn't be punished for simply following the law. There wasn't any news of breweries selling food, and every New Jersey brewery I've ever been to (a lot of them), has offered some kind of "tour". 

No, the real problem here is that the licensing system is broken, and no one who currently has a license wants it fixed. Sound familiar? 

I'll spell it out for you. The arbitrary decision by the PLCB to allow grocery stores to sell beer because they have purchased a restaurant license (and maintain a "cafe" area separated from the rest of the store) is a bad idea, and it is only making the broken licensing system worse. And in the future, if the Legislature wants to fix that by creating a new, reasonably-fee'd store license, guess who's going to be spending a lot of money to convince them that's a bad idea? The grocery chains who spent millions buying restaurant licenses, that's who. 

Leave it to the Legislature. They answer to us. Bureaucrats like Rible, and the PLCB, rarely answer to anyone. Though I do have to admire the brewers of New Jersey for standing up to this bullshit. Well done! Hold onto those menus!

New Jersey's example is clear. As long as the PLCB has this kind of arbitrary regulatory power...mistakes will be made. The solution? It's at the top of the screen, as always: Abolish the PLCB. Rewrite the Code. 

Oregon: the 2nd highest liquor taxes in America! Or are they?

Today we are going to look at Oregon, home of the Oregon Liquor Control Commission (OLCC), and generally considered to have the second-highest liquor taxes in the country behind Washington State. They are a control state for liquor sales, but wine sales are private business. This chart by The Tax Foundation shows the tax levels for 2016; Oregon appears to have a tax rate of 3.1 times that of Pennsylvania.

Wow. If we have high prices, the prices in Oregon must be astronomical, right? Let's compare some of the top selling liquors in the two states today, now that we have the additional wonder of variable pricing. Keep in mind, the PLCB's very own report on variable pricing says nothing about using price negotiation to benefit the citizens, only about how much more money they can take from us in "Revenue."

We're going to compare the prices for the top selling spirits in the PA State Stores from 2017 (Fiscal 2018 ended 3 months ago, but the new report still isn't out) to those same bottles from Oregon, using both state's website prices. We'll give you the OLCC price, and the PLCB's shelf price (and out the door price). We'll explain that shortly.

First on the list is Tito's Handmade Vodka. Oregon # 8488B is selling at $23.95. The PLCB has it as # 9359 and it is on sale this month for $17.99. ($19.07) Yay us!

2. Captain Morgan Spiced Rum: Item # 0475BB in Oregon, selling for $16.95. Here it is Item #8865 at $17.99 ($19.07).

3. Jack Daniel's No. 7: OLCC Item #0146B, which sells for $21.95 (on sale this month); or you can pay $25.99 ($27.55) for Item #4291 in the State Stores. Such a deal!

4. Fireball Cinnamon: Oregon item #0939B for $15.95 in plastic, or $17.95 in glass. The PLCB equivalent, #4302, is on sale for $17.99 ($19.07). Even on sale they can't match the Oregon price. How much do you reckon they had to variably mark it up for that to happen?

5. Jameson Irish Whiskey: Item # 0391B for $29.95 in Oregon; or pay $29.99 ($31.79) for item #7303 in Pennsylvania.

6. Bacardi Superior Rum: Oregon #6179B is currently selling for $12.95. But it's on sale at the PLCB! Yeah! Item #7970 is on sale for $13.99 ($14.83). Wait...what?

7. Grey Goose Vodka: Oregon's #0636B at $35.95 compares to the PLCB's # 8963, selling for $32.99 ($34.97). Hey, we won one!

8. Crown Royal: Oregon's #0311B is going for $27.95 there; but #5186 is selling for $28.99 ($30.73) here. Screwed again.

That's the tale of the tape. Now we'll explain it.

Why did I include the out the door price for Pennsylvania, but not Oregon?  Because there are no extra or hidden taxes in honest Oregon. The price you see on the shelf is the price you pay: no hidden variable markup, storage fees, extra 1% 'just because' fees, and no sales tax dumped on top of the already taxed liquor. Kinda makes you wonder about the "negotiation" on those JD prices in Pennsylvania, doesn't it?

Remember that these are the largest selling 750s in Pennsylvania*. If there was any buying power leverage that could be used, it would be on these items. So what did that buying power get us? Jack went up a dollar, as did Fireball, Bacardi Superior and Crown Royal.

Looks like Oregon has pretty competitive prices even though their tax rate is THREE times as much. How is that possible? Hidden taxes, with the main one being product markup, the bloated PLCB "profit" that's being used mainly to pay for bloated PLCB operating costs. It used to be fixed at 30%, but now it is whatever they need it to be -- that's "variable" pricing! -- to pay off their burgeoning overhead, incompetent decision making, and of course to maybe pay some of the pension debt they owe. Need more money? Just vary the pricing! UPWARD!

You see, in Oregon they just have taxes, and it's transparently easy to find exactly what they are. From that they pay for the OLCC's costs. Here in Pennsylvania, we have the super-secret Variable Markup that no citizen is allowed to know, used to pay for the PLCB and whatever idiocy they come up with: wine kiosks, house brands, courtesy training, bad contracts, renaming stores for the 4th or 5th time...you get the idea.

Oregon's listed tax rate may be OVER 3 times that of Pennsylvania, but our secret taxes make them almost equal on many, many items. This is what we get with an "independent" agency with almost no oversight, no experienced business people in charge, and 80 years of cronyism and incompetence at every level. Is this the system that is best for the citizens? Are you sure we can't do better by having real business people run real businesses in competition with each other for the consumers' dollar? You know...just like you buy everything else?

Privatize - now more than ever.


* (Oregon does not carry the same bottom shelf vodka that the PLCB does, so that was left off the comparison.)

Led, managed and staffed by incompetents

Pretty rough title isn't it? Sure, I'll admit it is...unless you can prove it.

Let's keep looking at the "improved product search feature of the Fine Wine & Good Spirits online store," as Chairman Holden called it 2 years ago!. To me, it is still so bad I can't think of anything they actually improved. Just reference the last blog post, where I talked about the PLCB not being able to get the product totals matching across the inventories available to the public; they couldn't even get them to agree on the same page.

The reason for that may be the thousands of dead listings for products no longer carried that the PLCB doesn't clean out of the system. I'm guessing it's because that would be THOUSANDS of products that they could no longer claim when they make their boasts to the public about how many thousands of products they carry. Do you really think that the 2011 Jack Daniel's Holiday Select is coming back?  It's been five fricking years since it was in stock, but it's still listed in the system. Maybe they're still waiting to get that picture before they delete it.

Am I cherry picking? Yep, and here is the 2012 cherry...

And the 2013 cherry too!

You do see the "Out of Stock" on each one, right?

How incompetent to you have to be to keep something on inventory for five years when it is NEVER EVER going to return? Maybe it's because they're using a search system that was probably designed during the punch card era. You want to see how bad the search engine is? Let's look for some Old Forester.

It's going to be hard for the PLCB to admit it, but there aren't 1074 matches to Old Forester, and I guarantee none are Ardbeg, Aberfeldy, or Glenfarclas single malt Scotch whisky. Pretty worthless, isn't it? To add even more intelligence-insulting idiocy, if you look at the "Brand" listing on the left you won't even find Old Forester listed. Should I be more specific in my search?  Go ahead and put in Old Forester Bourbon and see what that gets you. Narrowing it down takes the number of hits from 1074 to 1355, now that's an improvement. No, that isn't a typo: being more specific increases the number of wrong choices to pick from.

Think that's bad? How about the 5,044 choices — of which 5,036 are wrong — for Four Roses:

How do real businesses handle this? You know, the ones that depend on customer satisfaction (because they don't have a police-enforced monopoly)? Let's have a look. Of course none of these are as big as the PLCB or have as many employees, or a $66 million computer system.

Binny's IL

Hi Time Wine CA

France 44 MN

State Line Liquor MD  (you'll have to enter "Old Forester")

This isn't rocket science...unless you work in Harrisburg. Free states have liquor stores with a real inventory of real products you can actually search for and find, and go to the shelf and touch. Not every store, of course, but Wawa ain't Wegmans, either. The PLCB claims to be "world class," so their online inventory system should be world class. It isn't.

The PLCB doesn't really give a damn about you, the consumer. It is easier to put plants in the stores and aprons on the clerks than it is to fix the systemic and inherent flaws in the leadership, management, and operational systems.

Went to see the chairman, strangest I could find,
Laid my proposition down, laid it on the line.
I won't slave for beggar's pay, likewise gold and jewels,
But I would slave to learn the way to sink your ship of fools.

We deserve better - PRIVATIZE!

PA Democrats need to go to Iowa

When you're talking about getting a bottle of booze, and the words "freedom," "consumer choice," "selection," and "benefiting the citizens" are mentioned, Pennsylvania certainly isn't the first state that comes to mind.  But then, neither is Iowa, even though they are decades ahead of what our blinder-wearing Pennsylvania legislators have come up with for liquor policy.

Just like Pennsylvania at the end of Prohibition, Iowa instituted a state-controlled system for wine and liquor. Unlike the Commonwealth, they listened to their citizens and changed with the times. Maybe you're thinking that Iowa had a different societal outlook, that they were more likely to liberalize their liquor laws. Not even close: Iowa didn't even allow drinks by the glass until 1963. If you wanted a rum & coke, you drank at home or not at all. So for at least the first 29 years after Prohibition ended, we were doing better than Iowa.

Iowa also raised their liquor tax on licensees in the 60's from 10 to 15%, but they didn't hide it by calling it "temporary" for something that happened 30 years earlier as Pennsylvania did with the infamous Johnstown Flood Emergency Liquor Boondoggle Tax. They also didn't then bump it to 18%, either.

Since Iowa didn't have as many convoluted regulations and "interpretations," they were able to totally rewrite the liquor code in 1972, simplifying it from twelve chapters down to just one, all in one place in the code. When Pennsylvania "revised" The Almighty Liquor Code in 1951 they expanded it, and spread the regulations across multiple sections of the state code. Brilliant.

Kwik Star, Charles, Iowa

On May 4th,1972 the Iowa legislature decided that gas stations could sell beer...without having separate registers and cafes! Only 44 years ahead of PA, and they had hundreds of places instead of just nine. In 2011 they allowed gas station liquor sales, too. Don't hold your breath on that.

In 1981 Iowa, again decades ahead of Pennsylvania, allowed craft brewers to not only sell their own beer by the glass but ANY beer obtained from a licensed wholesaler for on and off premise consumption.  35 years later, we're just starting to catch up.

In 1985 the Iowa legislature started to unwind state control of wholesale/retail wine sales, acknowledging that they didn't have the knowledge or expertise needed to operate consumer-friendly outlets. The dual sale of wine in state and private stores took less than two years to show the clear winner, and the state closed state store wine sales in 1987. 20 years later, the Pennsylvania Legislature hatches McIlhinney's Mistake, and we're allowed to buy four bottles of wine at a time in a relative handful of grocery stores. Yippee, yay us.

Not in PA! You can only have 4, put one back.!

Shortly after wine was fully privatized in Iowa, retail liquor followed suit. The state transitioned from 221 state stores to 256 private stores in only four months. By the end of the four month period, Iowa had approved a total of 410 private stores. Even after lowering and eliminating some taxes — contrary to what State Store clerk union president Wendell W. Young IV says — the state of Iowa makes more money by not having state stores as reported by the state of Iowa itself.

Well before the U.S. Supreme Court Granholm v. Heald decision in 2005, Iowa legalized reciprocal wine shipping in 1996. It would be 20 years later, after almost eleven years of ignoring the Supreme Court's ruling, when Pennsylvania  finally came into compliance and allowed such shipments.

So here we are in the fall of 2016. Iowa and Pennsylvania started out roughly equivalent at Repeal, but the Hawkeye State has far outstripped the Keystone State in the race to booze normalcy. Iowa has far greater convenience, one stop shops, and no bureaucrats deciding which legal products are allowed to be sold in the state (the state still has a monopoly on spirits wholesale, but it isn't run in the draconian way the PLCB does it). Iowa is decades ahead in doing what their citizens want; in August, the governor announced another comprehensive review of the liquor code. Meanwhile, The Almighty Liquor Code has only gotten more convoluted and confusing (to legislators and licensees alike) since 1951. 

With over 1,400 retail liquor outlets serving a population a quarter the size of Pennsylvania's, do you know what else Iowa has? Less underage binge drinking, lower DUI fatalities (in both legal and underage drinkers), and lower DUI arrests.

What is the lesson of looking at Iowa? Simple. We don't need the PLCB: they're not convenient, they're not helping alcohol safety, and as we've been telling you for years, when you look at the entire financial picture, they aren't even making the state any money over and above the taxes that a private system could collect.

PRIVATIZE. It just makes sense.

Apples to Apples

Philadelphia is a city of 1,550,000 people, with a metro area population of a hair over 6,000,000, making it the 7th largest in the country. 

San Francisco has a population of  864,000 (56% of Philadelphia's), and a metro area population of  4,656,000 (77.5% of Philadelphia's), making them the 11th largest metro area.

As anyone can tell you, they are very different cities geographically, historically, and culturally. One of the few things they have in common is that they both have whiskey festivals. One is controlled by unelected, unqualified bureaucrats who decide what the entire state is allowed to buy; the other is guided by the free market, where access to new and different products in response to consumer demand is the norm.

Which Whiskey Fest would you rather be at?

So how do they compare? The Philadelphia festival has 251 listed items of which 156 are whiskies of some form or another. That is about 62% whiskey and 38% other spirits. The San Francisco whiskey festival has 393 whiskies by my count. Nothing else needs to be said.

No PLCB means better selection: PERIOD. Full privatization is the only way it can be had. Accept no substitutes.

Success and Failure

Quiz time boys and girls!  We are going to look at how to do things, and how to do things right. A tale of two (or more) control states. Record your answers and see how you did (some questions have more than one correct answer, but here's a tip: Pennsylvania is never the winning choice).

1.) This control state never had the FBI investigate their senior management in the last 20 years.
Pennsylvania did, and the investigation is ongoing.

2.) This state didn't have have senior management plead guilty to graft
Pennsylvania did.

3.) Pennsylvania spent $4 million (with an out-of-state marketing firm) to rename the State Stores. (Again!)
This state didn't.

4.) This state has people specifically travel to it for great booze prices.
Pennsylvania has people specifically leave it for great booze prices.

5.) This state " aggressively pursues a strategy that provides you with the best possible value."
Pennsylvania? Too lazy to try (and proud of it!).

6.) This state sells a 1.75L bottle of Jack Daniel's regularly for the same price Pennsylvania advertises as a "sale price." (And their sale price is $12 less than Pennsylvania's regular price!)

7.) Pennsylvania has the most liquor border bleed per capita in the U.S.
This state has the most reverse booze border bleed per capita in the U.S.

8.) This state won an award for being innovative in liquor and wine ordering (in control states).
Pennsylvania came in third...over a year later.

9.) Pennsylvania has one liquor store for every 21,000 residents.
This state has 20% more stores per capita.

10.) This state has 2 stores over 20,000 square feet in retail space, and a third that is over 33,000 square feet is being built.
Pennsylvania has one store in the entire state over 15,000 square feet. (And is a much, much larger state, with just under ten times the population of the other state.)

11.) The full time employees of this state generate 3 times the sales of the full time employees of Pennsylvania's State Store System.
The PLCB ended the last fiscal year almost $240 million in the hole.

Did you write down your answers? Let's see how you did!

1.) You could pick any other control state except North Carolina.
2.) Yup, any other control state except North Carolina.
3.) Any other control state.
4.) New Hampshire is famously New England's liquor store of choice.
5.) New Hampshire again.
6.) New Hampshire (as of 6/20/2016 PA regular price is $46.95, sale price $42.95. New Hampshire regular price is $42.99 and their sale price is $34.99. If you buy six, it's almost worth the trip!)
7.) Pennsylvania loses a huge amount of revenue to border bleed, while New Hampshire, with a population of about 12% of the Commonwealth, sells over 250% as much wine and spirits per capita (it ain't consumption, either: they have a slightly lower DUI rate). Over half of New Hampshire Liquor and Wine Outlet customers are from out of state.
8.) New Hampshire: innovative, Pennsylvania: wine kiosks and cost overruns.
9.) New Hampshire (1,350,000 residents / 79 stores) v. Pennsylvania (12.750,000 residents / 605 stores): not even close, New Hampshire wins again!
10.) New Hampshire: getting the picture?
11.) New Hampshire wins again: $647,000,000 in sales with only 305 full time employees = $2,131,000 per employee (right, over 2 million per employee). Pennsylvania? With $2,340,000,000 in sales and a bloated 3,100 full time employees, that's only $755,000 per employee. Sad.

Which state is a success and which is a failure? See, it's not even about Pennsylvania being a control state, it's about Pennsylvania being a lousy control state! If the Pennsylvania State Stores ran as well as the New Hampshire Liquor and Wine Outlets (er...and the taxes were similarly reasonable), this blog would never have started.

When you can't even do wrong right...time to give up. Privatize, because you will never "modernize" to the same level as New Hampshire. (Mostly because by the time the PLCB got there, New Hampshire would be 30 years ahead again.)

Meanwhile, in Saskatchewan...

How long has booze privatization been debated and promised in Pennsylvania? Decades.
How much has been done about booze privatization in Pennsylvania? Nothing. 

Meanwhile, in Saskatchewan, the Saskatchewan Party campaigned this spring on a platform that included transitioning their provincial monopoly liquor stores to privately-owned stores. They were put in power by the electorate, and now, less than two months later,, they've announced that they will convert 40 of the 75 government liquor outlets to private stores, and create twelve new private stores.

Dear Pennsylvania General Assembly:

Quick, Clean Up Those Liquor Laws: The Neighbors Are Visiting!

5-20-2016: This piece has been updated after a full reading of the bill as released by Sen. McIlhinney's committee and subsequently swiftly approved 50-0 by the Senate. Updates are italicized; deleted words are struck out.


This headline in Tuesday's Inquirer caught my eye this morning:

Pa. May Ease Liquor Rules For Democratic Convention

Here's the piece, describing likely temporary changes in The Almighty Liquor Code for the duration of the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia later this summer.

Short version: the Legislature feels politicians' pain, but not yours.

"C" is for "Cheat"

Less-short-but-still-short version: Bars can stay open past 2 AM while the convention's in session — four whole days — if they are granted a special license, which costs $5,000, and is only available for events directly related to the convention (What's odd: it's not clear if the event license applies to individual licensees, or the event premises, or wherever the "national event" decides to serve booze). Even more galling: for that time period only, these special licensees will be able to buy receive booze directly from out of state for those four days, unlike you...ever! This is so state delegations can get their favorite hometown booze (Washington State wines, Maine craft spirits), recognizing that (as our old pal, Senator Chuck McIlhinney, who passed the House bill out of committee, put it) "we're not going to put it in our liquor stores for four days and then sell it to them and then have to be stuck with it." Well...probably sounded good to him at the time. What Chuck probably meant to say was that it would be unreasonable to expect the clerks to have to deal with a bunch of interesting new products, so let's arbitrarily bend the law instead. Right, Chuck? That's what you do over in the Law & Justice Committee, after all.

Our version: Someone in the Legislature got a rush of blood to the brain and realized that conventions run on booze -- they do, even the Democrats, and don't even start on the whole weed thing -- and that our booze laws suck so bad that it could hurt future convention business...no, wait, if that was it, they'd make these changes permanent for Philadelphia and Pittsburgh, because that's true for every convention, not just political ones.

No, this is, as usual, about different rules for the ruling class, and charging you to pay for them. Because if you think that the bars who get those special licenses are going to pay for them in four days, or even try to pay them off in four days, you're dreaming. You'll be paying for them. Lucky you. (Okay, what's likely to happen is that some deal will be struck that the licenses are paid for as part of the venue payment, or covered by the donations of free booze.) And if the licensees are smart, they're going to stock up like mad during those four days, get Total Wine to ship in truckloads of booze to beat the PLCB like a gong. There is no limit on how much booze can be brought in, either. In the words of the bill as it stands, the licensees may "ACCEPT, IMPORT, POSSESS OR RESELL 
DONATED ALCOHOL ACQUIRED FROM LICENSED AND UNLICENSED ENTITIES SO LONG AS IT RECEIVES BOARD APPROVAL PRIOR TO DOING SO. THE DONATED ALCOHOL DOES NOT NEED TO COME TO REST AT A PENNSYLVANIA LIQUOR STORE PRIOR TO ITS USE BY THE PERMIT HOLDER, UNLESS THE  BOARD SO DIRECTS. MALT OR BREWED BEVERAGES DONATED UNDER THIS SECTION SHALL NOT NEED TO COME TO REST AT A LICENSED IMPORTING DISTRIBUTOR PRIOR TO THEIR USE BY THE PERMIT HOLDER, SO LONG AS
THE DONATED BRANDS ARE REGISTERED WITH THE BOARD AND THE BOARD APPROVES THE ARRANGEMENT." Note that this kind of arrangement would be exactly the kind of thing that could normally cause a licensee to be fined, possibly even lose their license.

Is that even how the law would work? Who knows, because McIlhinney had his fingers all over it, so it's likely to be something completely novel that no one asked for or wanted. Would you pay $5,000 for the "right" to be open from 2 AM to 4 AM for four days? For a bunch of drunken strangers? (On the other hand, would you pay $5,000 for the "right" to buy booze from regular wholesalers, rather than the PLCB? Just for the novelty of someone delivering the booze to you for a change? Hey, maybe!)

Leave out the longer hours, which is window-dressing: all they'd have to do to achieve this is to tell the BLCE to stay away from Philadelphia and give the bars the high sign. This is nothing more or less than an admission that the PLCB can't deliver what wholesalers and retailers in other states do routinely: put new products on the shelves (not in some airy-fairy "online store" that no one can search properly) in a timely manner by delivering them directly to bars. An admission that the state's booze monopoly is a failed, broken system that can't do what business needs.

If it needs to be fixed for four days...it needs to be fixed for good. And we know the way to fix it. The Inquirer knows, too. They ran this editorial on May 20: have a look. The House GOP caucus should belatedly redeem themselves by refusing to pass this deeply cynical bill. Failing that, the Governor should veto this unabashed deal-making. And if they don't, we the people should raise hell.

Privatize it. The time is now. 

How PLCB buying power incompetence has cost you and me Billions

In my last post, PLCB "Buying Power" A Myth, (which you really should read first), I told you how for the past eighty-plus years the PLCB's incompetence in not negotiating or even trying to negotiate the best prices for Pennsylvania liquor prisoners should damn them for all eternity to the lowest circle of Hell, the one Dante reserved for people who betray those whom they should serve.

As always, we are going to provide some numbers to show what they've cost you. I'm going to use the largest selling whiskey in the state as an example, the standard 750 ml Jack Daniel's Old Number 7. (I thought I would use that because when the PLCB reads this (and they do), it might reinforce how to spell Jack Daniel's correctly, since they seem to have a problem with that.)

We are going to compare Pennsylvania prices with the state that has the 2nd highest liquor taxes in the country — Oregon, also a control state with uniform prices — and see who at least attempts to take care of their customers: the PLCB or the OLCC.

From the PLCB we know that (non-negotiated) cost +30% markup (required by law) + handling fee  (arbitrary) + 18% Johnstown Flood Tax (levied on the price) + rounding up (always up!) to nearest .49 or .99 (just because) = Retail Price. In this case, our bottle of JD has an initial cost of  $14.46. so putting that into our formula we come up with $14.46 + 30% ($4.34) + Handling fee ($1.20) + Flood Tax ($3.60) + Roundup ($.39) = Retail Price of $23.99.

Oregon doesn't give us their unit price so we have to work backwards from the retail price to figure out approximately what their cost price is. Oregon works on cost + 79.8% markup + $1.40 Handling fee + $.50 per bottle surcharge + roundup (to nearest .05). Oregon's shelf price for a 750 ml bottle of Jack Daniel's Number 7 is $24.95 or about $1 more than PA. Taking that $24.95 and working the formula backwards we subtract the roundup (which we'll call zero, because the price is already at $X.95, and we don't really know, except that it's not much). Next we subtract the surcharge of $.50, which gives us $24.45. Then we take out the handling fee of $1.40 to leave us with $23.05.  Taking out the 79.8% markup ($23.05/1.798) ends up with a cost price of $12.82 at most (it's unsure because of the unknown roundup, but it's less than a dime difference). Remember: PA is paying $14.46.

Hey, but Oregonians still pay more on the shelf, so Ha-ha! Only...how much is the PLCB's "non-negotiable" system of costing and pricing costing you, when you compare it to the unit price the OLCC is getting? Easy enough to find out. Put Oregon's cost into the PA formula. $12.82 +30% = $16.67; adding $1.20 gives you $17.87; drown it in the 18% Flood Tax, and that brings it to $21.08, then add the roundup…and you end up with $21.49, a $2.50 savings ON EACH BOTTLE, if only the PLCB did their job. PLCB incompetence in business cost PA consumers over $6.1 Million extra on Jack Daniel's alone last year.

You're getting screwed out of $2.50 every time you buy a bottle of Jack — remember, that's only one example — because the PLCB can't be bothered (or doesn't know how) to use their "massive volume leverage" to get the same price little Oregon does. Multiply that by how many millions of bottles they've sold since 1934, and that is how much they have cost the consumers of the state. An amount you have been paying extra for all these years because of PLCB ineptitude, laziness, and their "we don't give a shit, we're a monopoly" attitude. Far more than any so-called "profits" they have ever turned in.

Remember: this isn't a tax that's being levied on you that's going to benefit the Commonwealth, it's not a fee you're paying to the PLCB to pay for alcohol enforcement, it's not "profit" that gets sent to the general fund whether it's real or just hidden pension funds...it's money the PLCB doesn't know how to get from distillers, vintners, and importers. It's gone to line their pockets, exactly the people who the PLCB apologists rant and rave that privatization will somehow steal all your money to pay. Too late: they've already got it, had it for decades, thanks to the PLCB.

Is this the system you want to keep or do you want them to "modernize"? Because "modernization" and "flexible pricing" will just cost you more by statute instead of by PLCB incompetence; the only difference will be that the PLCB will waste the money on Increased Operating Costs to fuel the Boondoggle Machine. I say we privatize and let business people run businesses and end the PLCB screwing of the public.

State Line = State of Mind

Not too far south of the Mason-Dixon Line is an odd little Pennsylvania-like anomaly within Maryland: the Montgomery County Department of Liquor Control. It's the last municipal control county in the U.S. They actually go the PLCB one better (one worse?): they have a monopoly on spirits, wine and beer sales, wholesale and retail off-premise. But like the PLCB, they are being called out for not serving the customers well and there are calls to privatize the system.

The funny thing is, the calls are from the DEMOCRATIC leadership of the state.  Specifically Maryland Comptroller Peter Franchot (D), whose office is in charge of liquor regulation for the state. Unlike the Democrats here in PA who would never say  something like “The county’s monopoly is bad for consumers, bad for small businesses and for our local economy” about the PLCB, the Comptroller is not only saying that, but saying it out loud and producing these anti-control broadsheets:

Clearly Franchot is not a student of Wolfonomics. He even has put out a report detailing exactly how and why privatization is better.

Of course the Union (who else?) opposes any talk of privatization saying that privatization would not create real competition.
"Under Maryland state law, two wholesalers may not distribute the same product in the same market at the same time. There is always one approved, designated wholesale distributor in a given market for each brand or product. Private liquor will have its own liquor monopoly."

So there won't be competition when Smirnoff is in direct competition with the other 40 brands of vodka in their price range? Somebody needs to go back to school and take some Econ classes. Competition will hold except at the very ends of the bell curve where there is no suitable substitute for the product you want: like a 60 year old bottle of Glenfiddich Scotch or a half-liter bottle of MD 20/20. That's true for the majority of states and countries, and is considered the norm so it really isn't pertinent to the privatization argument.

Of course, this ignores the indisputable fact that there is NO COMPETITION at all, be it real or fake, in Montgomery County now.

We here at the blog wish you the best of luck, Mr.Franchot! May you show our legislature the way to satisfying the consumer and ridding us of the archaic system now in place.

How to lie like Wendell Young IV

We like to take UFCW Local 1776 president-for-life Wendell W. "The Haircut" Young IV to task for bending, breaking, and shattering the truth about booze sales in Pennsylvania. He's out in the public again as the budget impasse comes down to the close and Senator McIlhinney's Great Step Sideways "modernization" plan for the State Stores is in play. Windy Wendy is spreading the same old manure about changes to the State Store System: any change is bad, we need these jobs, private companies are evil. 

As a public service, we will now present actual statements by Mr. Young, showing the different types of lying and some of the nuances of the same. 

Never gonna happen is it?

The Flat-out Lie 
One of Wendell's favorite type of lie, the flat-out lie is best used in press releases or other forms of communication where the liar can't be questioned with any immediacy. This type of lie is best used to impress or intimidate by showing the supposed knowledge of the liar.

For example, you can find this lie on the union's website "...the PFM found that privatization will cost more than $1.4 billion in transition costs over five years,”

As one of Mr. Young's favorite lies. He has said this numerous times in numerous places, but saying it over and over doesn't make it true. The PFM report  on page 186 lists the Operating and Transition costs as $1.4 billion. Mr. young always seems to forget the Operating part, the costs that are incurred by simply running the stores while they're open. The normal costs of operation, not costs incurred by any kind of transition.

And on page 180 of the report it shows how much just those operational costs are. Remember: these are costs that would be incurred just to keep the state stores running anyway.

From this you can see that keeping the state stores would cost well over $2B over the same time period since there would be no reduction in Operational expenditures over time. (Take the first entry and multiply it by 5.) That's actually likely to be on the low side: current expenses are $470 Million per year and going up.

The Lie of Time Passed

Another favorite lie for Mr. Young is to "forget" that one, two, five, or ten years have passed since he came up with whatever statistic he is talking about, but he still presents that old and often outdated information as current.

In this example, eight years after this CDC report was current (the CDC doesn't even have it up on their website anymore), the UFCW Local 1776 webpage still says that in 2007, PA had the lowest death rate in the country associated with alcohol consumption. They are actually correct about this....for 2007.  By 2009 Pennsylvania's rate had increased over 25% (Page 87 in the report) and by 2012 had gone up even more (Table 19, Page 78), resulting in a rate 30.8% higher than the 2007 figures Mr. Young likes to use. If you imply that the union-run, state liquor stores are responsible for the low rate, then aren't they also equally responsible for the higher rate? 

Just to make things worse for Wendell, of the states with lower rates than PA for the past seven years, two of them are New Jersey and Maryland. (Damn those free privately-run states right on our border...that so many Pennsylvanians use.)

The Lie by Omission
Another favorite used to make statements sound better without telling the whole truth.  We'll start out small with this. "Pa. has Wine and Spirits stores in every one of the state's 67 counties; West Virginia had state run stores in every county; with private companies in charge, five counties now have no stores."

The implication is that some people in West Virginia have to go unreasonable distances to find a liquor store. The truth is that NOBODY in West Virginia has to drive as far as some residents of PA. Why? West Virginia is a much smaller state with much smaller counties. It only makes sense...unless you are a union boss.

Wendell likes to talk about West Virginia and Iowa a lot. Mostly he will tell you about how they lost so much money on privatization, using statistics from the Iowa Alcohol Beverage Division and West Virginia Alcohol Beverage Control Administration.

Only total revenue did not decrease in Iowa. Reading the same PFM report linked above, it was reported for Iowa that: "Privatization was deemed successful from a revenue standpoint, with profits increasing by $125 million over the first 11 years of privatization compared to estimates under State control of the stores. At the time of the 10-year review, the conclusion was that most of the increase in profits was the result of eliminating the state stores and the costs associated with them. " (Page 111)

Oh, and Iowa now has over 1000 outlets with a quarter of our population, and still has less DUI and binge drinking across the board.

How much did West Virginia save when they didn't have state stores to maintain, with salaries and pensions? What about the auction fees for licenses (over $60 million)?. Then there are the business taxes that are now paid which weren't before. I don't see any of that in Mr. Young's calculations.

You know what else he doesn't say?  For eight years, West Virginia state stores and private stores were in direct competition in wine...and the state was losing. If state run stores are better, how could that be? 

You want more? How about the 5,000 family sustaining jobs you hear him talk about being lost to privatization all of the time? Here is another example, and another from 2 years ago.  What he doesn't tell you is that the PLCB says that over 45% of their workforce is classified either part-time or seasonal (page 43). Hardly "family sustaining," and it's not 5,000, either.

So if you hear Mr Young say anything about privatization, it is time to fire up your google-fu and check to see how badly he is lying about it this time.

Privatization is Modernization.

Private Retail, Private Wholesale.

All We Want Is Normal.