Just Had A Thought

 I'm in the process of being interviewed by email for a story about the PA Liquor Code and how people are finding ways around it (like BOTLD and, of course, beer and wine in supermarkets and Sheetz), and I sent the following quote in...that really seemed to sum up the whole thing so well that I thought I'd share it. 

So many things in PA liquor law are done ostensibly in the name of "control," when really the liquor code controls competition more than it does consumption. It has long since stopped serving the citizens, and only serves existing businesses and politicians. 

Why Its Not Safe To Go Into The Woods - A PLCB Horror Story

Not satisfied that their stupid laws, random enforcement, idiotic "interpretations," and never being checked for underage sales are killing enough citizens, the PLCB figures that having more stores open with longer hours for the start of hunting season fits their goal of  "...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...:

So while DUI, Underage DUI, DUI Fatalities, Underage DUI Fatalities, Binge Drinking, and Underage Binge Drinking is worse in PA than most of the border states, apparently drinking, driving to game lands, and hunting is perfectly acceptable and even encouraged by the PLCB.

They are getting sneaky about it too. In my first blast at this insane policy in 2013 they put out a separate announcement stating that these stores would be open early just for hunting season.  I'd link to it but the PLCB no longer  has it listed. In 2014 they combined it with the Thanksgiving holiday extended hour increases as shown here. Now they are trying to just outright hide the fact they are expanding store hours for hunting season by not listing it at all.  When you look at this year's announcement there is no mention of  Holidays or Hunting Season. All you get now is a flat "The following stores will have extended store hours in late November." However, if you look at the stores that are open or have extended hours on November 30th it is only because of hunting season.

So if you find yourself in the woods on November 30th, remember that the PLCB did their best to make sure all those people with guns were able to get liquor. I wonder how many cows would survive if they didn't ?

More fun with math and myths

"Modernization"  math

The Math:
Is there something in the water or air in this state that causes people to not be able to read and do simple arithmetic when it comes to talking about PLCB numbers? How many times have I proven Wendell W. "Haircut 100" Young IV wrong, or the PA Whine and Spiteful Council wrong, or the notoriously un-mathematical state store supporters wrong? Even Representatives like DiGirolamo and Ferlo couldn't escape. Representative Sonney, now it's your turn.

The "Save the PLCB" universe was all atwitter when a Republican (actually two, counting DiGirolamo) announced a direct shipping bill or supported the idea of a direct shipping bill. Here was the proof that modernization was what the people wanted (provided you were one of the people who got campaign contributions) and a great way to show that the PLCB was at the forefront of almost — but not quite — being consumer oriented. 

Now Rep. DiGirolamo said that his version of direct shipping would bring in an additional $25 million in use taxes (called 'profit' by the PLCB) based on additional sales of  $361 million at a 6.92% margin. These are his numbers, I just do the math.(1).

However, Rep. Sonney has a fiscal note attached to his bill with a chart right on top that shows the state will lose $13,750.000. The interesting thing is that if you read the fiscal note on page 2, Fiscal Impact, it says: "The PLCB projects that the reduction in the mark-up from 30% to 10% could reduce revenue by approximately $16,500,000 annually..."  It goes on to use completely different numbers from the chart on page one. I'm guessing that he doesn't even know this, but the point being made is that if nothing else changed but the reduction in mark-up, the state will make less.

The Myth:
But HB 189 does change other things.  Instead of 55 wineries signed up for the current system supposedly at least 300 more will join the party, which sounds like a lot...but is only about 5% of U.S. wineries. How much more direct-shipped wine will Pennsylvania citizens and businesses buy when there are 400 choices instead of 55? Rep. DiGirolamo says 5.4 times as much (2), he isn't saying where he came up with the figure.

Will the state still lose money if sales increase by over 5 times and the mark-up is only 10% on SLO's? This is the PLCB we are talking about, so nothing they do should surprise you. They shouldn't lose money, in my opinion, but never underestimate their incompetence.

So this is good for the state and the citizens, right?  Not really. It still places the PLCB as the roadblock for which items can be ordered. If the PLCB can get it, you have to order from them. As I pointed out, those 400 wineries that signed up only represent 5% of U.S. wineries. But will there really be 400 wineries that sign up? More importantly, don't expect to direct ship anything from outside the country — that isn't allowed.

HB 189:

1. Wants the wineries to pay $100 license fee.
2. Wants a list of all wines shipped to PA residents
3. Wants permission to audit the direct wine shippers' books.
4. Wants submission to the jurisdiction of the board, any other State agency and the courts of this Commonwealth for purposes of enforcement.
5. Wants to require proof of age of the recipient, in a manner or format approved by the board.
6. Wants all boxes labeled with the words "CONTAINS ALCOHOL:SIGNATURE OF PERSON 21 YEARS OF AGE OR OLDER REQUIRED FOR DELIVERY." (no other state requires this)

And it goes on. How many wineries will make special boxes just for PA? How many will submit to jurisdiction? How many residents want the government to know what and how much they ordered?  Is this really what you think of when you say direct shipment?

Will this bill change the tax code to determine what  the state uses as the definition of a nexus for tax purposes? Some companies will have no physical presence in the state and no third parties who act as agents or representatives of the remote seller who have a physical presence within the Commonwealth. This point was brought up to me by a lawyer who is sympathetic to privatization; it carries no legal weight, but is interesting to think about..

All in all, it's looking like another failed attempt to improve the consumer satisfaction when buying wine and spirits in the Commonwealth. Band-aids like Rep Sonney's HB 189 do little to fix the problem of a broken system that most think is insufficient to their needs and wants, and does nothing significant to  move the state forward to the free market system that all normal states use.


END IT - DON'T MEND IT



1.) $25 million divided by .0692 is $361,271,676.30
2.) Current SLO wine orders are $67 million, $361 million is 5.4 times as much

UFCW Wine & Spirits Council trying to hide from the truth.

The union that represents the State Store clerks, the UFCW, likes to use its puppet organization, the PA Wine and Spirits Council, to show all sorts of "proof" that the PLCB is doing a great job. Unfortunately for them, all of their information is either old, no longer true, or both. Let's look at some of the points they bring up. 

1. The UFCW says - The U.S. Centers for Disease Control (CDC) Task Force on Community Preventive Services announced its decision and rationale for recommending against further privatization of alcohol sales.
The real truth is - The statement is true but the science used to justify it was debunked as reported in Forbes.

2. The UFCW says - This document reports that in 2007 Pennsylvania had the lowest rate in the nation of death by alcohol-induced causes.

The real truth is - Since that point in time alcohol-induced deaths in PA have gone up 31% (page 78) and the state is not the lowest in the country. New Jersey and Maryland on our borders beat PA along with other states, even the famously booze-drenched state of Louisiana. Looks like there may be some problems with that 2007 study.

3. The UFCW says - "Control states have significantly lower rates of youth drinking and binge drinking, as well as lower rates of alcohol-impaired driving deaths, than license states.” Using a study from 2006 they go on to quote "In states with a retail monopoly over spirits or wine and spirits, an average of 14.5% fewer high school students reported drinking alcohol in the past 30 days and 16.7% fewer reported binge drinking in the past 30 days than high school students in non-monopoly states"

The real truth is - Not in Pennsylvania.  According to the PLCB's own Act 85 report (page 9) "...lifetime alcohol use was higher in Pennsylvania for the eighth grade (7.3% higher in Pennsylvania compared to the national MTF rates), 10th grade (9.4% higher in Pennsylvania compared to the nation) and 12th grade (6.0% higher in Pennsylvania)." 30 day use is shown as higher for Pennsylvania high school student too.A look at nationwide drinking rates by SAMHSA doesn't paint a rosy picture either. Binge drinking for adults places PA in a tie for 31st in the country, and of the border states, only New York  does worse -- five do better.

4. The UFCW says - "Increased availability of alcohol is generally associated with increases in consumption. States that license alcohol retailers generally have higher alcohol density, greater physical availability, longer and later hours of sale, all of which are factors that contribute to the increased availability of alcoholic beverages."

The real truth is - Wendell is trying out for the Captain Obvious role, telling us that more stores and longer hours contribute to the increased availability of alcohol. No kidding, that's why the State Stores suck! But the idea that more stores/outlets will drive higher consumption is an old policy projection that has been debunked; see the next point.

5. The UFCW says  - Using a report based on the experience in Sweden, "According to the projections, scenario 1 (just stores privatized) yields a consumption increase of 17% (1.4 litres/capita), which in turn would cause an additional 770 deaths" or "The corresponding figures for scenario 2 (stores privatized and wine in grocery stores) are a consumption increase of 37.4% (3.1 litres/capita) leading to an additional annual toll of 2000 deaths." This does not agree with another report listed further down the page that is also from Sweden that comes up with a different result..

The real truth is  - The facts do not match the projections. Washington State, for instance, didn't have a 37.4% increase in consumption or even a 17% increase when they privatized the state liquor stores recently. DUI fatalities have decreased since privatization and are below Pennsylvania's rate. The report is real, but just like the CDC report debunked above that said consumption would go up over 40%, it doesn't match any reality. More junk alcohol science.

6. The UFCW says - Using a report on wine consumption from 1968 to 1991 that came out in 1995, the conclusion is that sales increased dramatically in five states that 'privatized.' "After controlling for both nationwide and state-specific trends, we found significant increases in wine sales after privatization of 42% in Alabama, 150% in Idaho, 137% in Maine, 75% in Montana and 15% in New Hampshire. The increases in liters of pure ethanol per year in the form of wine were 621,000 in Alabama, 432,000 in Idaho, 364,000 in Maine, 363,000 in Montana and 171,000 in New Hampshire."

The real truth is - Privatization of the selling of wine did increase sales in those states: up to the level of the national average. Wine sales in general more than doubled overall in the US over the same period. In fact...Pennsylvania has seen that same proportional increase, without privatization. Yet.

We could go on, but... Let's address the real issue: control vs. regulation. There are many points that should be taken into account as guidelines, regarding store density, age carding, single serve take out, etc. but they all have to do with REGULATION, not whether the state should be the sole retailer, trying to sell and control as much product as possible.

While there are definitely significant problems associated with drinking too much, those problems are not confined to states with private alcohol sales. Despite decades of "control," and one of the lowest "alcohol outlet densities" on the planet, Pennsylvania does no better than the national average for most measures of alcohol-related harm, and is worse on some. This plainly shows the current system doesn't work very well. The majority of risks can be managed by regulation and enforcement, just as they are now in other states.

It's a simple prospect. If you don't want to be like Camden, then regulate and zone store density, as most states have done. If you want to lower DUI, then perhaps the state should concentrate on prevention and education instead of Mother's Day vodka sales.

Pennsylvanians already consume more alcohol per capita than New York, Maryland, Ohio, and West Virginia, so our vaunted "control" and current regulations, actually, our whole system doesn't seem to be working. Our system is broken, and the best and only real fix if to get the state out of selling a retail product and back to regulation like most normal states. We can't move forward dragging the dead carcass of Prohibition with us. Especially since they don't really want to come along for that ride.

I’m a hater

Or at least that is what one pro-PLCB representative called me and he is right: I hate a lot of things about the PLCB. I’ll start off with these two dozen or so and you can add your own in the comments.

Oh PLCB, how do I hate thee, let me count the ways.

• I hate going to the state stores.
• I hate that they don't have what I want.
• I hate that most of the time I can't order it.
• I hate that if they do have something it is usually more expensive.
• I hate that Philadelphians (or any Pennsylvanian, for that matter) don't have legal access to anything approaching the selection of Joe Canal's, Moore Brothers, Total Wine, BevMo, and a host of others.
• I hate that even the PLCB's buyers know so little about brown spirits.
• I hate that the so called 'wine specialists' don’t work standard hours; say noon to eight when most customers could use them.
• I hate that the state cheats its own citizens by not allowing liter size bottles to be sold everywhere.
• I hate that the alcoholic's best friends -- the mini, the half pint and the pint bottle -- are cheap in PA, but the 1.75L bottles are 99% of the time more expensive.
• I hate that a manager can’t even set up the stores they manage to best suit their customer base, but have to follow the forms sent by Harrisburg that tell them where every bottle has to be placed.
• I hate that the PLCB doesn’t even figure that out themselves, they hire an out of state firm to do that for them. 
• I hate it when the union says that five West Virginia counties lost all service when they privatized...but don’t tell you people in those counties still don’t have to drive as far as residents of the 20 PA counties that have only one or two State Stores.
• I hate that while Gross From Sales  has increased 75% since 2000, contribution to the PSB only went up 49%, contribution to Drug and Alcohol education only went up 60%, and that in this "record year" the total contribution from sales is less than the average of the past 14 years.
• I hate wine kiosks and the very idea of wine kiosks; anybody who had a hand in insulting the consumer in that way should have been fired.  
• I hate that the three members of the actual liquor control board worked only 21 days last year.
• I hate that they need a $150,000 babysitter because the board can’t manage to work more than 22 days this year.
• I hate that somehow the PLCB thinks that the alcohol in beer is different than the alcohol in wine or whiskey.
• I hate that I can’t get a case discount to try and mitigate the usually crappy prices.
• I hate that people think the state stores are a cash cow when in reality the non-tax contribution is under 3/10ths of 1 percent of the budget.
• I hate it when we are told that PA has the lowest incidence of underage buying when the state stores are never checked for compliance.
• I hate that the PLCB spends more on advertising than education. Just what are they actually trying to do?  Make sure young people know what to buy once they are 21?
• I hate it that the union thinks one poll counters four decades of polling that show the citizens want to be rid of the state stores.
• I hate that the PLCB thinks convenience has gone up after closing 20% of its stores.
• I hate that the PLCB keeps spending money to rename the State Stores.  No matter what they call them they are still going to be State Stores.
• I hate that some cube rat or committee in Harrisburg decides what an entire state is allowed to buy.
• I hate that the PLCB online inventory has hundreds, if not thousands, of mistakes in spelling or placement making it far more difficult for the consumer than other online retailers.
• I hate that I live as far away from New Jersey and Delaware as I do.
• I hate that after 80 years we are still discussing what the majority of the states have already figured out.

To show I’m not all bad I loved Joe Conti.  He was so incompetent that I wondered if he was secretly working for privatization.

Privatization IS Modernization and government control of retail is Socialism.

In The Public Interest? What are they thinking?

Contrary to what you may think the PLCB isn't all bad. They, along with 34 Happy Valley establishments have put a major dent in the drunken spree known as State Patty's Day and they tried to curb the drinking at Kutztown by limiting hours although that didn't work. 

However, I really can't figure out why the PLCB has extended the hours of some stores for hunting season. Drinking and driving isn't enough we have to add firearms into the mix too?  They really need to explain how making sure that people with guns have increased access to alcohol, courtesy of the state store system, is in the public interest. (Before you climb on your high horse - yes I am a gun owner.)

http://www.finewineandgoodspirits.com/static/pdf/Extension_of_HolidayHours_2013.pdf

One Good Reason

I had an essay on why Pennsylvania should privatize the State Store System put up on WHYY's "Speak Easy" page today (yes, the irony of the name was not lost on me!). Last week, Marc Stier, a self-described "writer and activist" from Mt. Airy, had an essay posted there titled "6 reasons why we should keep the state wine and liquor stores." Not long after it went up, a few people asked me when i was going to write a rebuttal, and in pretty short order I had been connected with the editor of the site, Eric Walter. He told me what the guidelines were -- pretty simple: 700 words and no trash talking! -- and I wrote it on Sunday afternoon.

The gist? Well, in response to Stier's 6 reasons, I noted that the vaunted "control" that the PLCB exercises through the State Store System is meaningless in a state where all beer sales, and all by-the-drink sales (and even wine sales at the state's many wineries, and spirit sales at the state's distilleries) are done by private entities. As I said, "control" of only one segment of the market is no control at all. Tax revenue, as I've explained over and over, is a red herring; revenue would, at worst, be a wash. His other four points were really one: keep it because of the union jobs. I countered that the UFCW, the main union involved, has successfully organized in private businesses; the bulk of their members are in private businesses, so liquor sales do not have to be a state monopoly to allow union jobs. Pretty simple.

But my One Reason was even simpler: the Legislature should privatize because We The People, the ones who actually elect them in order to have them represent us, consistently poll in strong favor for privatization, and the Legislature has been persistently ignoring those wishes for 30 years or more. It's well past time for them do what we want.

As I say in the essay, "A poll that found people in favor of free lunch every Thursday wouldn't mean the state should mandate that. But Pennsylvanians only want to join the 42 other states where people don't rely on the decisions of bureaucrats to determine what wine and whisky they're allowed to buy." We're not really asking that much. Is it as important as gay rights, as the fracking debate, as spending on transportation infrastructure? No, definitely not. But there IS a bill in motion, so let's do it.

And let's keep it simple: privatize wholesale and retail wine and liquor. Sell beer and wine in the grocery stores (and drugstores, and big box stores, and convenience stores) for a reasonable license fee without all the different limits on single purchases. Let beer distributors upgrade to all-alcohol stores with a fairly simple and inexpensive license upgrade, then add about 500 more all-alcohol licenses. Or something else simple and fair; I'm not wedded to that. We don't have to make a "windfall" on this, and the more I hear about that, the angrier I get. More to come on that, but meanwhile...please read the essay, hit the Like button, and share it where you can. Thanks!

"More proof: State should exit liquor business"

That's a quote from the Harrisburg Patriot-News editorial page. They're citing a study from the Commonwealth Foundation for Public Policy Analysis (full text of the study is here, and it's worth a read), a libertarian-leaning PA think tank, that found...well, essentially found what I was saying here, and then backed it up with facts and citations. They found that Pennsylvania's "control" of liquor and wine sales had no social benefit for the state.

Here's what the summary of the study says (all emphasis (except as noted) added by me, cuz that's what I do):

...arguments might be made for state control as a means of achieving some desired social outcome. In Pennsylvania's case, advocates claim that the social goals of reducing alcohol consumption, underage drinking, and alcohol-related traffic deaths justify controlling wholesale and retail alcohol markets.
Evidence from 48 states over time shows no link between market controls and these social goals [their emphasis]. Divestiture of Pennsylvania's state liquor stores would represent a financial windfall to the state, while posing no threat to public safety, as it would not result in the social ills many opponents of privatization fear.

Now. If all that's true, and it certainly would seem to be -- they've compared it the best way possible, looking at other states with similar and different regulations -- why do we keep the State Store System? It's not about protecting you from yourself. It's about the money -- oh, sorry, I mean the revenue. (Because the State doesn't take your money, they enhance the revenue flow.) And we already knew that. So if we're going to make the same (or better) in taxes under privatization, and there's no horrible effects of drinking too much under privatization lurking, and privatization could make the state a huge windfall and create a lot of jobs...what the hell are we waiting for?

As the editorial concludes: "It is no longer 1933. It is time for the state to get out of the liquor control business."

"...bringing any alcoholic beverage into Pennsylvania is illegal..."

Well, I got my response. I recently wrote to the PLCB to ask them how a private citizen, who happened to be in another state and saw a nice bottle of wine for sale, and wanted to bring that bottle home to Pennsylvania, could do their duty to the Commonwealth, fill out a form, pay the taxes, or so on. How could we do the right thing in order to bring this into the State and be square, in other words?

After two weeks -- a relatively short time, considering it came from the PLCB's chief legal counsel -- I got my response this morning. I'd publish it here, only it came by e-mail in the form of a PDF image, which has so far resisted four different attempts to convert it to text. No problem; I've successfully uploaded it to Scribd, and you can see it below.

Please note, before we go any further, that they took pains to note that the State Police Bureau of Liquor Control Enforcement enforces the liquor laws, and the PLCB issues legal opinions that are binding on licensees only. "Since you are not a Board licensee, the following is offered for your guidance and information only." Ah. Kinda like the fine print on the video poker machines that Pennsylvania seems completely unable to stamp out. Okay. With that said, let's see what their opinion is.

The third paragraph puts it pretty damned simply: "The general rule is that bringing any alcoholic beverage into Pennsylvania is illegal, with limited exceptions." You have to be "the Board, a manufacturer, or the holder of a sacramental wine license or of an importer license" to transport or possess any liquor or wine within the Commonwealth that has not been purchased from the State Store System or a state winery. "Accordingly, you cannot simply cross the border into a neighboring state, purchase a bottle of wine and return to Pennsylvania, as both the importation and possession of such wine would be illegal."

However...turns out that you can bring in up to one gallon free of tax and mark-up...from outside the United States. So, New Zealand is okay; New Jersey, no way. And if the Board requests it, you have to produce evidence of such travel, the receipt proving you actually bought the stuff there (and not, for example, in New Jersey), and "an affidavit indicating that the purchaser was allowed to bring the liquor in duty-free" (no instructions on who would issue such an affadavit...). And before you think this completely painless, "The Board assesses a service charge for this importation." Of course they do.

You can receive wine and liquor from outside the Commonwealth as a gift, "so long as the proper paperwork is submitted to and cleared by the Board." And you pay the service charges and mark-up, and by the way, you have to pay the taxes to the Department of Revenue, so you have to talk to them, too.

Feeling like Kafka yet? Remember that you do have the ability to purchase wine from outside the Commonwealth! You may purchase it online! And then have it shipped to one of the State Store System's stores (of your choosing!). There are a few conditions, of course: the wine cannot be one listed on the Board's Internet catalog; you'll have to sign an affidavit that you are 21 and purchasing the wine for your own "use;" and you can't get more than 9 liters in a month. Oh, and there's a shipping charge, a handling charge, the 18% Johnstown Flood Emergency Tax, and 6% sales tax (plus an additional 1% in Philadelphia or 2% in Allegheny County). Bet they get a lot of traffic on that one.

In short, they conclude, "...there is no proper protocol for crossing the border to purchase wine in another state and then bring it back to Pennsylvania." And that's pretty much it.

(The letter was copied to the Bureau of Liquor Control Enforcement, to the Senior Director of the Office of Regulatory Affairs, the Director and Assistant Director of the Bureau of Licensing, and the Press Secretary. I'm not intimidated, I refuse to be.)

The beautiful thing is, they don't have to provide a proper protocol, or the reasoning for why that is not allowed. That's the responsibility of the Legislature, by way of The Almighty Liquor Code. Why is it that way? Because the State Store System and the PLCB were set up to be a total monopoly -- it's the Pennsylvania Liquore CONTROL Board, after all -- and you can't have a monopoly that leaks around the edges.

Oh, it does, of course; people bring booze into the State every day. You know it, I know it, the Bureau of Liquor Control Enforcement, everyone knows it -- except the PLCB, apparently, as Joe "CEO" Conti continues to hold that this is a very minor problem. Sure it is. Which is why there are all those big liquor stores so close to the border in Delaware and Maryland, and why the out-of-state liquor stores run full-page ads in the Inquirer.

I am deeply offended by the very idea of this monopoly. I drive to visit my in-laws in New York and Virginia several times a year. I'm an American. What right does the State of Pennsylvania have to tell me where I can or cannot buy a bottle of liquor? If it's all about the taxes, why not make it easy for me to pay the damned things? No, instead, we're told that "bringing any alcoholic beverage into Pennsylvania is illegal." That's asinine!

Let me make this perfectly clear. I deeply appreciate the time that the lawyers at the PLCB took to write this response. I do; I have no doubt they know who I am and why I wanted to know, this site gets hits from the PLCB multiple times a week, but they responded, and they didn't mince words. I don't hold the PLCB or the BLCE responsible for this ridiculous situation.

I blame The Almighty Liquor Code and the Pennsylvania Legislature. For 75 years we have been under the patronizing thumb of this monopoly. We have no choice except theirs, we have no options but theirs, we have no way to change it or make it better. This is not the fault of the PLCB. Rather, the PLCB and all it stands for -- monopoly, conflict of interest, political patronage, lack of choice, lack of response -- is the fault of the continuing refusal of the Pennsylvania Legislature to lift this Stalinist, paternalistic, antiquated system from our shoulders. It's 2009: could we be allowed to buy a bottle of wine wherever we want? Is that so much to ask? Or do you vant to see our papers?

Read the full text of the PLCB's response on Scribd here

Following the Proper Protocol

People have asked, here and on Facebook, regarding those two folks who got busted in Sayre for bringing booze into PA...what IS the proper protocol for bringing alcoholic beverages into the state? Good question. So I asked the PLCB:

Good morning,
My friends and I have been discussing a news item from the Towanda Daily Review about two Pennsylvanians who were recently cited by the LCB for "purchasing alcoholic beverages out of state, and not following proper protocol for bringing alcoholic beverages into Pennsylvania."
We all live near the New Jersey or Delaware borders, and we were wondering: what IS the proper protocol? If we should find ourselves in a liquor store in New Jersey and see a bottle of wine that would be good with dinner, and bought it, and wanted to be legal and square with the Commonwealth, what should we do? Is there a form we can fill out to pay the taxes due? Or do we have to register our intent beforehand?
As you can imagine, there's quite a bit of this chain of thought going on in border areas. We'd like a solid answer so we can do the right thing.
Thanks!
-- Lew Bryson

When I get an answer...I'll share it here.

Update: "Please be advised that your inquiry has been assigned to a staff attorney for research and response." Okay. I'm waiting...

Is this great? Or is it pathetic?

A little over a week ago, on May 3rd, I walked into the Wegmans in Downingtown, PA, on my way back from the Sly Fox Goat Races. I bought some cheese, some fruit, milk, dishwasher detergent, and something else...can't remember...

Oh, right. Beer.

I went into a supermarket in Pennsylvania and bought a bottle of Brooklyn Local One (Yes, I know, I should have bought Victory, or at least a Pennsylvania beer, but I just wanted a Local One. Sue me). I got one bottle, paid for it, and walked out, thinking "Look at me, I just bought a bottle of beer in a supermarket in Pennsylvania! The new world has dawned, we are free!"

Big deal. I still don't understand why this is, or was, such a cause for alarm and celebration. It's nothing new. I bought single beers at the Ashton Market in Upper Darby over 10 years ago! The store had about 400 different beers, and I did a two-page beer newsletter for them. It was a small grocery store with a deli counter in the back that did take-out sandwiches, but it wasn't a restaurant: it was a grocery store.

Look, kudos to the PLCB (yes, I really did say that, give me a second to explain): they got this right. When Wegmans and Sheetz applied for their licenses and laid out how they were going to sell take-out beer in their stores, the PLCB approved it. Because it was legal. As they love to point out, they just enforce the Almighty Liquor Code. It wasn't the PLCB that was holding us up. It was the conservative nature of Pennsylvania politics (and retail; you notice that Wegmans is an out-of-state company), a lack of imagination, and the Pennsylvania Malt Beverage Distributors Association, who sued to keep those licenses from being granted.

But that is just about over, appeals exhausted (and a lot of good beer money wasted on lawyers who should have advised their clients better). Which will only mean that now you can buy beer in large grocery stores. That have spent wads of money to buy a restaurant license.

Beer is groceries. See my previous post (which applies every bit as much to beer as it does to wine and spirits): why does this stuff even need to be so heavily regulated? Lighten up. This is not about control. This is about entrenched interests, it's about business. Why not make it about the consumer -- the voter, the taxpayer -- once in a while?

Reason #16: Scary Booze!!!

In Quakertonia, all gasoline and diesel fuel sales are made by the state's Fuel Control Board; kerosene and propane are sold by private businesses (fuel distributors can only sell 55 gallon drums of kerosene and 500 lb. tanks of propane; grill stores can sell 20 lb. grill tanks and five gallon cans of kerosene. No one knows why). Every town of 3,000 people gets a Fuel Shop; the price is the same in every town -- high -- diesel is only available in special stations on the highways, and the sales clerks are only allowed to sell fuel to licensed drivers. Fuel sales are "controlled" by the state because gasoline is highly flammable and the vapors are explosive (and carcinogenic), and because uncontrolled gasoline sales could lead to people driving all over the place (which apparently has no ill effects in neighboring, "uncontrolled" states) and because the taxes are a huge source of revenue.

In New Cornwall, all cigarette and cigar sales are made by the state's Tobacco Control Board; pipe and chewing tobacco are sold by private businesses (leaf shops sell Prince Albert in the can (hee hee!) and 20-packs of Skoal; gas stations can sell bags of Red Man and single cans of Copenhagen. No one knows why). Every town of 3,000 people gets a Smoke Shop; the prices are the same in every town -- high -- cigars are only available in stores in big cities, and the sales clerks are only allowed to sell smokes to 16 year olds and up. Tobacco sales are "controlled" by the state because tobacco is a health hazard (which apparently is no worse in neighboring, "uncontrolled" states than in New Cornwall) and because the taxes are a huge source of revenue.

In Minnewaska, all prescription drugs -- no, wait -- all guns are sold by -- no, hang on, how about all the cars, yeah, the state sells all the cars and you're not allowed to buy cars in another state... and coffee, too. And power tools. And energy drinks. And horny goat weed.

You get the picture. Why is wine and spirits the only retail business the State is in? What makes booze so special?

Reason #16:

There is no convincing reason that wine and spirits should be "controlled" more than anything else.

The basis for "control" is, first of all, over 75 years out of date. It goes back to the idea that drinking, any amount of drinking, was dangerous for anyone, not just alcoholics. More to the point, control of alcohol was more about morals than it was about anything else. Here's what The Almighty Liquor Code says about why the PLCB was founded:

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.

You know what? Back in those days there were all kinds of laws about morality. Depending on the state or town, you could be busted for selling a condom (now they sell 'em in vending machines), stores didn't open on Sundays (even the State Stores are open on Sundays now), you couldn't sell porno through the mail (they give it away on the Internet...), you couldn't even swear on TV. All that went away, and lots of other things from that same kind of thinking, but Pennsylvanians still have to put up with the State selling them booze, and protecting their health, peace, and morals.

Come on! I can buy a can of diesel fuel at the Sunoco station, a bag of fertilizer at the Agway, and The Anarchist Cookbook off Amazon. I can buy a gun (we get constant wrong numbers for a local gunshop), I can buy everything I need to cook up crystal meth (or so they tell me), I can buy a tank of propane, I can buy cigarettes, I can buy an aluminum baseball bat, I have bought long kitchen knives. Compared to this stuff, what is so damned dangerous about a bottle of merlot that the state has to control my access to it?

The entire idea of control is pointless. We do not have border controls; New Jersey's got stores full of whiskey and wine right over there and they don't control me. We can buy a case of 11% beer at the privately-owned distributor. We can go to a bar and drink whatever they have. The only thing "control" does...is make buying booze a pain in the ass.

The PLCB should be abolished because the idea that sales of wine and spirits need to be "controlled" makes no sense when compared to other products: guns, explosives, drugs, tobacco, cars, airplanes, knives, power tools... The State collects taxes on wine and spirits, but it collects taxes on beer, too: through the distributors. The State makes its mark-up on wine and spirits; why not have the State sell everything, then, from groceries to fishing rods? It makes no sense, and if it weren't for the blanket interpretation of the 21st Amendment that states can do whatever they want with alcohol, it would be gone.

Let's get rid of this dinosaur. Is it just about the money? Then make it about the money. Sell it -- make money -- auction off booze store licenses -- make money -- and PA stores will be selling all that booze that the superstores over the border are selling now -- and making money.

There's no real reason not to do it.