10 Questions for the PLCB

1. Why do you cheat the residents of Pennsylvania by having wine and liquor only bars and restaurants can order?

2. Why do you cheat the residents of Pennsylvania by giving bars and restaurants a 10% discount but not a case discount to consumers?

3. Why do you cheat the residents of Pennsylvania by only having liters at special prices at about 2% of the stores?

4. Why do you cheat the bar and restaurant owners of Pennsylvania by not allowing those who don’t live anywhere near a store that carries liters from ordering them?

5. If the PLCB is doing such a good job of controlling alcohol then why are the Pennsylvania alcohol fatality rates not better than the national average? http://www.alcoholalert.com/drunk-driving-statistics.html

6. If the PLCB is doing such a good job educating Pennsylvanians then why do you spend more on advertising then education? Why is the state 28th (Statistically average) in DUI rates? http://oas.samhsa.gov/2k8/stateDUI/press.htm#Tab
   
   
7. If the PLCB is one of the largest liquor buyers in the United States (which it is) then why don't Pennsylvanians have the best prices across the board? Why are there so many things on clearance all the time? After 80 years one would think you should know your customer base better. You’ve been told to run it like a business then be more like Walmart who doesn’t seem to have any problems selling all their stock, having low prices and making money.

8. Staying with Walmart, why does their barcode system work so much better then the PLCB’s? You don’t see little stickers with new barcodes on Walmart products but you certainly do in the liquor store.

9. Renaming things does not change them.  Going from Specialty Items to Luxury Items and renaming stores from Wine & Spirits to Fine Wine and Good Spirits only wastes money.  How much did just those things really cost to implement?
   We know about the $3.7million paid to an out of state consultant but how many meetings and man hours were wasted on it? How much are 600 signs going to cost and whose relative is going to get that contract?  Is the total more or less than the wine kiosks? Remember they weren’t supposed to cost the state anything either.

10. Why can't there be 20-30,000 sqft stores in Philly and Pittsburgh? The PLCB doesn't have any problem with a few little stores open 3 or 4 days a week with limited selection in Podunkville why shouldn't they have a few of the biggest stores in the biggest cities? What business ever did well by having the exact same thing everywhere no matter what the customers wanted or would buy?
    
    
    

In conclusion, based on your success with wine kiosks, the new website, the horrid Oracle upgrade implementation, failure to provide correct information for beer registration, courtesy contract fiasco, Mother’s Day ads, blaming the date rape victim, unneeded renaming of things, unimproved fatality and DUI rates, the 36 years it took to move from counter stores to self-service, the 70+ year schedule the current store upgrade is on and the numerous failures Pennsylvanians don’t know of yet, why should we trust you when you say you can “Modernize”? 

Privatization IS Modernization. Accept nothing less.

Don't Forget: it's not just the State Stores and the Case Law

I don't want to lose focus on privatization, because we've all got to keep letting our representatives and senators know over the summer that we want them to use the September legislative session to get this done: no linkage to the Transportation bill, no linkage to Corbett, just "linkage" to what their constituents have wanted for 40 years... We hear about "package reform," which is Legislaturese for "fixing the case law," but their idea of "package reform" is just another set of stupidly arbitrary limits on how much we can buy and where we can buy it. It's really simple: no limits on how much or how little beer we can buy in one transaction at one store. Fix it.

But there are other problems. I was reminded of one of them while I was reading this Washington Post article on how the beer scene is growing in Washington, DC. Washington beer bars have -- have always had -- a regulatory edge on their competition in Maryland and Virginia: no registration laws, no wholesaler exclusivity laws. The reporter explains how that works by comparing the two situations:

Suppose a Maryland or Virginia beer bar wants to sell a hot new release. The beer bars have to make sure it’s approved for sale in the state, call a distributor to see if it’s available in the warehouse, then arrange delivery to the bar. (This is what’s known as the three-tier system.) If a D.C. beer bar wants to bring in the same beer, it just calls the brewery or the local beer rep, orders the beer, has it delivered and pays D.C. sales tax on the purchase price of kegs or bottles. Any beer, from anywhere, can be sold here.

The article goes on to point out that enterprising retailers have driven hundreds of miles to purchase rare beers and bring them back. And...what would be so horrible about that? Well, for one thing, the Pennsylvania beer excise tax would have to be paid. It's not much, one of the lowest in the country (which means one of the lowest in the world, hallelujah), but it does have to be paid. Luckily, it's based on something very simple: volume, which means a standard table could be whipped up pretty quickly for 24-bottle 12 oz. cases, sixtel kegs, 12-bottle 22 oz. cases, and so on.

The major difference for the State? The bar would be responsible for paying that tax rather than a wholesaler, and would, presumably, be responsible for keeping a paper trail. Still...most bars would continue to buy the same old stuff from the same old wholesalers; that's where wholesalers in other retail markets make their money, off convenience and service, rather than laws that force retailers to buy from them at whatever price the wholesaler happens to set (or is allowed to set; some states have maximum markup laws).

Getting rid of beer registration would be ridiculously simple. It was obvious during the Beer Registration Raids Hearings that no one could give a straight answer on why beer registration even existed. It's likely that the reason it does is closely linked to wholesaler exclusivity; beer registration involves the brand, the producer/importer...and what wholesalers have the rights to sell that beer in the state.

So the two are linked. Well...maybe it's time to take a serious look at this anti-competitive combine of laws, and determine whether it's really serving the Commonwealth and its citizens, or if it's only serving a small number of businesses at the expense of the Commonwealth's beer drinkers.

Auditor General: "The Board and the vendor lost credibility..."

I'm back from vacation...and apparently just in time! Auditor General Jack Wagner's audit of the wine kiosk fiasco -- sorry, program -- is out today, and it's pretty much unforgiving. Well, the man's an auditor; of course it's not forgiving, that's not his job, and this was a fiasco. Some pertinent stuff (the full report's here in PDF format; the AG's statement is here (added emphases are mine, of course)):

Wagner’s special performance audit...chronicled the problems that existed from the beginning of the ill-fated kiosk program. The six findings, are:

• The board used kiosk technology that effectively controlled the purchase of alcohol (about the only positive statement in the whole report)
  
• The board followed state procurement requirements, but the request for proposals did not enable fair and just competition
  
• The board and the sole responding vendor negotiated the kiosk contract in ways more advantageous to the vendor than necessary
  
• The board spent $1.12 million more than it took in over two fiscal years and has invoiced the vendor for the losses. But the vendor has not paid
  
• The board and the vendor lost credibility when the kiosks malfunctioned,
  
• The board overstated the convenience of the kiosks

Note that he says "effectively controlled the purchase of alcohol." Not "efficiently," or "nonintrusively." The same thing could have been "effected" by a live person standing at each kiosk -- which the malfunctions eventually also required -- and the statement would have still been true. But weak competition on an RFP, vendor-favorable negotiations (when the vendor is heavily invested in campaign contributions to a sitting governor), losing money on a supposedly cost-free project, operation failures during the busiest sales season of the year, and the total cluelessness on the definition of "convenience?"

Look, read the statement, which covers most of this. Read the actual report, and pay particular attention to Section C, beginning on page 71, where the Board responds to the report. The AG's report takes that response and pretty much shreds it, saying over and over that the Board simply chose not to respond to some (the most awkward) of its findings.

But the message here? The wine kiosk program was a failure. Black and white, accountant-certified, this thing was a catastrophe. The break-even point -- as stated by the PLCB -- was 210 bottles a week per kiosk; only 3 out of 32 machines met that threshold; 17 -- over half! -- sold under 100 bottles a week. They simply didn't work: in the first three months of operation, "auditors determined that 1 out of every 21 transactions was problematic." That's leaving the general shadiness of the contract and the apparent lack of any escape hatch for the Board aside!

And the response from PJ Stapleton (who apparently may have been reading a different report)? "As it has done throughout this process, the Board will attempt to take whatever steps it can to maximize the possibility that the wine kiosk program will succeed."

PJ. Dude. It's over. Walmart blew you off. Wegmans blew you off. Where are you going to put these things? In Post Offices? In courthouses? Wait, wait, I know: how about in the State Stores! 

As I have said for a long time, the major problem at this agency -- beyond the tonedeaf attitude, beyond the terrible business model, beyond the insane insistence that the little stores out in the sticks carry thousands of SKUs when there's no demand for them, beyond the personnel system that doesn't properly reward product knowledge and sales competence, beyond all these serious problems -- is hubris. PJ and his Pals on the Board, Joe Da CEO, and their lieutenants have consistently responded to criticism with an attitude of 'you don't understand, what you call failure is innovation; what you call unethical is faithful to the letter of the law; what you call inconvenient is controlling the best interests of the people of the Commonwealth.' As if we are somehow too stupid to see that this is simply very bad management.

Let me lay this out in such straightforward terms that it can't be ignored.

• The wine kiosks are a public relations and sales disaster that have indeed cost the Board credibility
• The very real disaster of the PLCB's Oracle-based inventory system (subject of another audit) that wound up costing the Board hundreds of thousands in ruined wine (though they say it's fine, and what the hell do they care) and ad hoc storage fees in an absolute orgy of managerial ignorance
• The "courtesy contract," which exposed the PLCB's total lack of basic sales skills and was awarded in a way that showed poor judgment and created the appearance of a conflict of interest, not to mention being an expense that was not worthwhile...according to the AG again (in...yeah, another special audit)
• The embarrassing spectacle of over 20 workers at the PLCB's Philly warehouse being fired for undisclosed "financial irregularities" -- and they are still "undisclosed" 10 months after Joe Da CEO promised an investigation
• The PLCB's large number of unprofitable stores -- in a police-enforced monopoly -- and questionable business models
• The beer registration raid fiasco, where the PLCB's ineptly-kept beer registration database led to pathetically comic 'raids' by armed BLCE officers on three respectable Philly restaurants and one respectable Philly wholesaler, costing them thousands in lost time and sales (read it all here and here)
• The terrible record on nuisance bars (sure, it's the BLCE doing the enforcement, but the PLCB does the administrative punishment, and it's soooooo sloooooowwww....)

That's just in three years. Three years! I mean, speaking pragmatically, PJ and Conti have been a godsend; they're making my job easier. But speaking as a PA taxpayer? When are they going to resign because of their incompetence?! These are major screwups, this is a terribly run agency that lurches from one disaster to another, reacting to the Legislature, arrogantly ignoring the Governor and lawyerly disagreeing with the black and white criticisms of the Auditor General. But who do they answer to? Apparently no one. Which is, in my mind, one of the biggest Reasons of all that they need to be completely restructured, and the retail monopoly taken away from them.

Why does beer brand registration exist?

In the wake of the beer registration massacre and fiasco, a question pops to mind: why does Pennsylvania law require beer brand registration? The answer -- as it is many times with The Almighty Liquor Code -- is not so easy to find. It's a lot like the case law: we've been doing it for 78 years, and no one has any real idea why we started.

What will people tell you? Well, how about Francesca Chapman, the PLCB's usual spokeswoman? Don Russell asked her why in his story in the Daily News, and she said that "the registration requirement helps the state assure payment of state beer taxes and helps prosecutors identify alcoholic beverages in drunk-driving cases or any other type of prosecution."

We'll get to the second part down below. For the first part, I don't see how registration helps in tax payment. Because of the three-tier system and PA's other laws about beer, there is a paper trail a mile long on every beer sale in the Commonwealth: beer comes into the wholesaler -- paperwork -- it goes out to the retailer -- paperwork. And the state can demand the paperwork at any time to see if there is beer on premises that did not go through the taxing process; same thing with self-distributing brewers. You can't escape the tax unless both parties are willing to engage in behavior that could very easily leave them without a license -- and therefore without a business. No one has seriously suggested that taxes were being evaded by selling unregistered brands.

Who's next? Unnamed "Harrisburg enforcement officers" in Rick Nichols piece on the raids in today's Inquirer say the reason is to "protect consumers." Nichols ponders, "How else to know whether the beer is from Victory (legit) or a backyard home-brewer (not)?" I hope he's being facetious (and I'm sure he is). Because if it's a bottle, it has to have a federally-approved label; if it's a draft, by law it's supposed to be dispensed from a tap with the name of the beer it's pouring clearly displayed. (and that's a law that I DO wish would be enforced more often...but that's another story). Does registration do anything? Not at all: again, there's already a paper trail in place that shows where the beer came from, and besides...nobody bothers counterfeiting beer labels. This is ridiculous on the face of it.

There's one more. A brewer I was talking to told me he'd attended a meeting where then-PLCB chief counsel Francis X. O'Brien Jr. about 8 years ago. They asked him why there was a need for brand registration (you'd think he'd know, right?), and O'Brien said it was for criminal cases involving drinking: underage drinking, DUI, and the like. If beer cans or bottles were found on the scene, the prosecuting attorney could use the brand's presence on the registered list to prove that the beer was beer, and thus contained alcohol. My first thought: you gotta be kidding! Then I remembered this court case in Reading a few years ago -- the story's funny, but the facts are serious: they actually needed to prove that Miller Genuine Draft was beer. I don't really think we need a whole system of brand registration just to prove that beer is beer. Could we, I don't know, "stipulate" that in the "rules of evidence" somewhere? Not to mention, it does them no good if the drunk was drinking draft!

I see no good reason for a brand registration law, not even the registration fee (it's less than $300,000 for the whole current list, and the BLCE just blew through about half that with these raids anyway). Unless...take a look at the registration form, particularly the second page. Is registration all about making sure what wholesaler has an exclusive on the brand; is this about marking your territory? If it is...I'm sorry, but once again, I do not understand why it is the state's concern. Let the wholesalers worry about enforcing their exclusivity contracts. There are civil courts, are there not? Does any other industry get this kind of enforcement support from the State? Maybe the dairy industry, but milk ain't beer. If this is what brand registration is about, and wholesalers are still caught with unregistered beers (and the registration list isn't worth the electrons it's printed on anyway -- Don, excellent work here!)...

Why are we registering beers at all? I really want to hear tough questioning on that when the hearings on these raids are held next month.

Vintage beers okay: nothing to worry about!

Just got off the phone with a PA brewer (who prefers to remain anonymous...and as long as the BLCE keeps that up, so will I), who told me they'd talked to the brand registration folks at the PLCB and had this to add to the discussion. Vintage beers -- older beers that are no longer brewed, or beers from defunct breweries like Heavyweight or King & Barnes -- that have already been purchased by a retailer are not in danger of causing a citation for unregistered beers. Once beer is purchased by the retailer, assuming it was registered when purchased, it is "grandfathered in," and the retailer doesn't have to worry. So if you're a bar owner or a distributor or a deli, and you've got beers you're aging? Don't worry about it.

Well, not exactly. Note that wholesalers are not afforded this protection, and there is nothing to keep the BLCE from checking their list, not finding those aging beers, and confiscating them. But you can't be fined or suspended for having them, and you can file paperwork to get them back.

I'm not sure just how good I feel about this.

Not just Philly

Reader David Staab reports on Facebook that three BLCE agents were at Shangy's (the well-known "Beer Mecca" in Emaus, PA) yesterday.

Is this a state-wide "effort"? Gotta be more satisfying than trying to close nuisance bars (the bars noted in State College were the scenes of open underage drinking, countless noise violations, and a murder, but it only took the PLCB four years to close them...and Stapleton's so proud of that he brags about it in the linked editorial). Write your legislator now. This pointless harassment of PA business needs to be stopped.

State Rep John Taylor: "a ridiculous use of enforcement manpower"

Last Thursday's raid on three Philly bars -- all owned by the same couple -- for "unregistered beer brands" has caught fire in the media. Hundreds of comments are swamping stories on the Daily News website, stories like the one today where Rep. John Taylor (whose 177th District is home to the Memphis Taproom, one of the bars raided) blasted the raids.

THE TOP Republican on the House Liquor Control Committee said yesterday that the State Police engaged in "a ridiculous use of enforcement manpower" last week when more than a dozen officers staged raids on three Philadelphia bars, suspected of selling beers not registered in Pennsylvania.
"I don't know why they would use that many people to track down an issue like this that could have been handled with a routine inspection," said state Rep. John Taylor, whose legislative district includes one of the bars, the Memphis Taproom, in Port Richmond.

Taylor puts his finger right on the problem. Here's what I said in a comment on Andy Crouch's Beerscribe blog:

Why is a “raid” necessary? Here’s an option: instead of five armed cops walking in on a lunch crowd and seizing beers, how about one bureaucrat comes by with a clipboard to see if unregistered beers are on the premises? If any resistance is offered, backup is a phone call away, and resistance won’t look good on the complaint. Find the unregistered beers and — here’s another thought — get the wholesaler on the line and arrange for payment of the fee and registration on the spot. Done, under the radar, no business disruption, the beer’s registered, the state’s happy, and it costs so much less than sending five cops (and looking like idiots in the press).

I remember having this same thought about ten years ago when I went to my first State College Micro Expo beer festival (a festival that was largely regulated to death, unfortunately). As I arrived about half an hour before the fest started, one of the fest organizers was being lectured -- hectored, really -- by a red-faced PLCB enforcement agent about unregistered beers at the festival. "There are unregistered beers at this festival," he shouted, "and they will not be served, or I will shut this thing down!" The organizer took care of it -- a pain in the ass, but what are you going to do? -- and later told me that the PLCB had first contacted him about the problem less than two days before.

And I thought to myself then...wouldn't it have been better all-round if instead of getting up in the guy's face like that, the PLCB agent had instead said, I understand there are some beers coming to the fest that are unregistered. Let me help you with the paperwork, you cut me a check, and we'll get that all squared away in time for the fest? No stress, no screaming, and the state...has revenue. Wow. Would that make sense? What am I missing?

Oh, and in case you were wondering? The PLCB went after the unregistered brands at the fest...because of an anonymous tip. Best guesses were that it was a local distributor (Zeno's certainly wouldn't have done it: they were making money hand-over-fist that day selling beer to happy geeks). Kinda makes you think that this "anonymous tip" thing should go away too.

And now...video

Here's the story on Action News. I especially liked this part:

Authorities stress if Hartranft thinks any of the confiscated beer is registered all he has to do is show them the paperwork. "We would happy to have for them to come down, show us they are registered. If they are they can sign the property record and take custody of them," explained Sgt. La Torre.

That would be the same Sgt. La Torre quoted in the Daily News today, I suppose.

State Police Sgt. William N. La Torre, commanding officer of the Philadelphia office of the Bureau of Liquor Control Enforcement, said that he was not aware of any beers that had been mistakenly confiscated.
La Torre said that the beer would be kept in a secured location, as evidence, until the case is resolved, probably in six to eight months. If an administrative-law judge finds that the bars possessed unregistered brands, the State Police typically would seek a forfeiture order to destroy the beer, he said. Depending on the temperature of the storage location, some of the beer will likely turn sour in that period.
Maida said that the couple's attorney had told them that they have until 6 p.m. tonight to compile evidence to prove that the confiscated beer is properly registered.

And if they don't get the evidence by...oh, by two hours ago, they can't get the beer. The Sgt. La Torre on the TV, some time later on than the newspaper interview, sounds like a much more conciliatory man. I reckon he don't need a weatherman...

The Memphis 44 Resurrection Raids: and why you should care

This past Thursday the Bureau of Liquor Control Enforcement and the PLCB carried out three simultaneous raids on Memphis Taproom, Resurrection Ale House, and Local 44. The raids were the result of a complaint that the three bars were selling beers that are not registered with the State. (No one has, at this point, stepped forward to take credit for lodging this complaint; I'm assuming that they're hiding behind "Anonymous.") Each bar was visited by five armed officers -- again, simultaneously, presumably so no one would call the other bars so they could somehow hide cases or kegs -- who proceeded to check beers against the list of registered brands, and confiscated ones they couldn't find on the list. They evidently didn't look too hard: Brendan Hartranft, owner of Memphis, told me yesterday that they seized bottles of Duvel, a beer that's been imported into the US for over 30 years, and is clearly on the list.

I'm an old fart, so when I heard of this, I immediately thought of the raid on The Farmhouse in Emmaus, about 15 years ago. In that case, the folks at the Farmhouse -- which was quite the advanced beer spot in those days -- were doing a series of beer dinners, and had scheduled a winter beer dinner. Traditionally, the holiday beer dinner is the one where you pull out all the stops, and they wanted to have beers no one else had. They tried doing that the legal way -- by getting the beers registered -- but the PLCB dragged their feet and wouldn't clear the paperwork. Finally, the decision was made to get the beers without registration -- maybe not the best idea, but there you are -- and the result was that in the middle of the dinner, over 50 guests were shocked to see three carloads of armed BLCE march into the dining room, where one of them loudly proclaimed "This dinner is OVER!" The guests were asked to leave, and The Farmhouse was shut down for a full inventory of their alcohol. Other than the one unregistered beer...nothing was found. The manager told me that when the head enforcement agent left, he stopped long enough to shake his finger in the manager's face in rage, and yelled at him, "I know you have untaxed alcohol in here, and I'm going to find it!" He never returned.

So what's this tell us? First, that the PLCB is incompetent. Beers were seized at the three bars that were on the registered list, and I know of at least one beer that was not registered that was not seized at any of the three bars. As co-owner Leigh Maida said, "Some of what they confiscated at one location, they left alone at another. Some of what they took is listed plain as day on the PLCB list of registered beers." Brendan told me he does not intend to take back the beers that were wrongly seized. "I don't know what they've done with them," he said. "I don't even know they're my beers."

Second, that the PLCB has no sense of proportion. This violation is approximately equal to a parking ticket -- unregistered brands, for crying out loud? -- but they put fifteen officers on it for three hours, and who knows how much preparation time. Meanwhile there are countless nuisance bars, there are bars serving mislabeled liquor, there are bars all over Pennsylvania where patrons are being overserved...and they blew hundreds of dollars of our money out their butts following up an anonymous tip that someone was serving "unregistered brands"? Come on, guys: if you had the cyber-brains the Bensalem cops have, you could be cruising BeerAdvocate or Facebook and picking up a case like this every week! Seriously, just checking out BeerMenus.com would probably make your quota. But then you wouldn't be available for some "anonymous tipster" to launch you against someone they want to screw, so forget that, right?

That's a direct lead to Third, the idea that someone -- oh, let's say it: that some rival bar or restaurant owner, or maybe a brewer with their nose out of joint (An anti-Memphis44Resurrection commenter at Uncle Jack's site notes "They [Brendan and Leigh] started all of this when they drove to Baltimore to pick up an illegal keg and thumbed their noses at the local brewery" (and there have been suspiciously similar comments made in a number of Philly blogs/forums over the past six months). Which local brewery is left as an exercise for the student...) would deliberately rat out another small beer business leaves a very bad taste in my mouth. That's nasty. That's low. That's...shitty. And there's no excuse for it. None.

Which leads us, however, to the big one, Fourth: this is clearly a violation of PA liquor law. Just take a look, right here, and you'll see it's number 9 on the list of UNLAWFUL ACTIVITIES. There's not even any wiggle room here: "It is unlawful to sell, offer for sale or deliver any brand of malt or brewed beverages unless such brand has been registered by the manufacturer or franchised agent thereof with the PLCB." Period. If sale or offer of an unregistered beer has taken place, a crime has been committed. If you sell a beer without the proper paperwork being filed and approved and the $75 fee paid, you're in the deep stuff. It doesn't matter that many many bars and distributors across the Commonwealth are doing it all the time -- and they are, I know it, they know it, and God bless them, because the beer's good -- it is breaking the law.

Well... Why? Why is there a law? I think we're assuming that this is a tax issue. If a brand isn't registered, tax is not being paid, and nothing gives state booze agencies the giddy-up quicker than the thought of losing some pennies (we are talking about pennies, too: PA does have one of the lowest beer taxes in the country). But that's not what's happening in almost every case. The beer's going through channels, tax is being paid, it's just that the state doesn't even realize that it's being paid tax on unregistered brands. (If you're guessing that the state doesn't really care, so long as it gets its taxes...you're right.) It's not even the $75. The real problem is that the state wants the paperwork done, and the fee paid, even for brands that come in once a year, in tiny amounts -- again, no sense of proportion -- and the paperwork takes too long to clear (stop me if you've heard that before).

So let's say it. Brand registration is bullshit. It's a pain in the neck in a state liquor authority full of pains in the neck. Bring the beer in, pay the taxes, sell the beer to the customers. Done. Who needs the registration step? If every beer is taxed, the state gets all the tax revenue, and there is no incentive to break the law because the PLCB is being a pain in the ass with paperwork.

The real problem here is not the PLCB, of course. They went over the top with this one, and they cheerfully allowed themselves to be used as some assclown's goon squad -- which is really troubling -- but they were just following orders. Who gave the orders? The Pennsylvania Legislature, which continues to balk at simplifying and rationalizing The Almighty Liquor Code.

People have suggested sending your complaints to the PLCB through their comment address. You can do that, it's here: RA-LBconsumer@state.pa.us. But who you really should send your comments to is your state legislator. Ask them why brand registration takes so long and costs so much that it discourages businesses from registering. Ask them why brand registration is even in The Almighty Liquor Code. Ask them why the PLCB saw fit to mount such a ridiculous raid for such a pointless infraction. And be sure to ask them why the PLCB would disrupt a business on the word of an anonymous tipster, when that's a practice that's just ripe for abuse.

This is bad enough as an isolated incident. But it speaks volumes about how backwards booze law is in PA, and about how badly it is enforced. Simplify the Code. Abolish the PLCB.