Lawsuit looming over PLCB's monopoly extension at Garces Trading Co.

And it's about time.

Brownstoner, the Philly real estate blog, is reporting that the Washington Square West Civic Association, State Rep. Babette Josephs are joining with about a dozen Philly restaurants -- Le Bec Fin, Tria, Lolita, Fergie's, and Caribou Cafe among them -- in filing suit against the PLCB over the "wine boutique" they've placed in Garces Trading Company. It's not fair to work with one restaurant owner, they say.

The following quote pretty much summed it up for me, especially the first sentence:

"I have nothing but admiration for Jose Garces—this issue is not about him," Jon Myerow, the owner of Tria, said in a statement. "The issue is that of all restaurants being able to compete on a level playing field. In no other state has the alcohol governing body entered the restaurant industry to compete against the very businesses it regulates, all while partnering with hand-selected competitors. The incredible amount of choice we enjoy when dining out shows the free market at its best. If restaurants are forced to compete against the state, eventually there will be fewer restaurants."

Right. Remember Dominic Origlio's line from the PLCB hearings?  "I would be remiss without mentioning what I believe is the underlying cause of these regulatory and enforcement problems. Pennsylvania's beer industry is regulated by its competitor -- the Liquor Control Board, a state run corporation which sells wine and liquor."

Inherently unfair; now expressly unfair. Get Pennsylvania out of the retail booze business. Today.

Thank God: Wine Kiosks Still Viable!

It looks like my usually reliable source was wrong: the wine kiosks live! I'm so happy; I was really looking forward to seeing these wastes of money in operation. Thank you, PLCB, for restoring my faith in your bad decision-making capability!

Check out this latest hot wine kiosk news, in which PLCB Chairman PJ "PJ" Stapleton threatens that prototype wine kiosk deployment will take place at the Wegmans in Silver Spring Township, Cumberland County (which also sells beer!), and the Giant Food Store in Susquehanna Township, Dauphin County (which does not...). These are both hot-spots of wine-savvy grape mavens, I guess. Or maybe they're down the road from someone's house, I dunno. They're close to PLCB HQ, of course, and, like Jose Garces's restaurant -- I'm sorry, his grocery store, they were hand-picked by the PLCB to receive the largesse of extended monopoly.

According to the article, "The LCB has been testing the machines in a warehouse in Mechanicsburg for three months, making mostly technical and mechanical alterations to ensure the kiosks work properly, Stapleton said." I'll just bet. Wouldn't you like to have been there to watch the bottles full of water (you don't think...would they actually use real bottles of wine?!) come rolling out? The excitement as the teleoperator (were they in a completely different room of the building?!) determined whether the person utilizing the vending kiosk was the person their ID said they were, and were sober? There's a beaut: did they actually get someone drunk to test that?

I can't wait to drive to the Weggymans and try this dope device out. I may even buy a viddie-cam to share the moment with you. Won't that be fun!

Folks...the way to get wine sales into supermarkets -- which is clearly where the people who actually buy wine in Pennsylvania want them -- is to dump the State Store System and go to private sales: put wine on the shelves, not in some souped-up gumball machine. It's something we should have done 50 years ago. Here's hoping the kiosks are the final straw that demonstrate just how asinine this system is.

Oh, almost forgot: cui bono?You need to ask? Read this again, and then think: ask not what you can do for your State; ask what your State is doing to you.

Conti Speaks!

Interesting interview with Joe "CEO" Conti on the new Grub Street Philadelphia site. Kirsten Henri asked him about the "wine boutique" concept, and gets some answers that just leave you slack-jawed. For instance, the boutiques are "picked" by putting ads in local newspapers, and waiting for replies, a charmingly innocent way of making sure you get the response you want while remaining "courtesy contract legal." And a great exchange here:

Conti: ...we weren't looking to partner with restaurants, we were looking to partner with high-end gourmet food stores.

Henri: Maybe it's confusing because your first partner, Jose Garces, is known for being a restaurateur, not a grocer. [Score!]

Conti: Jose basically was doing this market in the Western Union building. When he heard we were placing boutiques, he called us.

Clearly Garces reads the real estate ads in the local papers; what, in the "Monopoly Opportunities for Advantage Available" section?

But this is my favorite:

Henri: Are you surprised some restaurateurs are bent out of shape?

Conti: How can I be diplomatic here? [I assume this means, "How can I insult your intelligence and get away with it?"] I'm from a restaurant family. I like to tease I'm a bartender by birth. My father was president of the National Restaurant Association. [This, BTW, is essentially Conti's self-stated qualification for his current position: heredity.] Yes, I was surprised. It's a very old-fashioned, parochial view of the restaurant market. Decades ago we realized the hospitality industry survives best when there are a number of options for the consumer.

Didja see that last line? "...the hospitality industry survives best when there are a number of options for the consumer." Guess that doesn't apply to retail wine and spirits sales!

These ridiculous ideas only point up how ill-suited state-owned monopoly booze sales are to modern commerce. These "boutiques" are clearly an unfair advantage to stores that are selected on the basis of personal choice by unelected, unregulated bureaucrats. The wine kiosks are a bumbling circumvention of supermarket sales.

Stop making it so hard! Privatization would fix all of this, increase jobs, continue the collection of taxes, and put an end to the embarrassing parade of corrup -- er, "the appearance of a possible conflict of interest." The Legislature needs to put an end to this farce, and now would be a great time.

PLCB Playing Favorites in Philly

Philadelphia Magazine has a "Web Original Article" up about a simply amazing new PLCB initiative -- that's right, another one -- that has jaws dropping all over Philly. Restaurateurs' jaws, that is, at the stunning favoritism and clueless unfairness it demonstrates. Check this:

José Garces' ... new something involves the Pennsylvania Liquor Control Board. That’s right — as part of a wider effort to rebrand its image, the PLCB will be pairing up with notable chefs and restaurateurs to open a handful of boutique wine stores, aiming to give oenophiles a more personal experience. (The Philadelphia location will be the first.) The specialty stores, whose inventories will include a few hundred bottles of wines not available in traditional Wine & Spirits stores, will hold tasting events and have a highly trained staff to help you find that perfect Pinot.

Let's leave aside the easy joke -- that the "highly trained staff" must be the ones who already know how to say "Hello!" and "Thank you!" -- and take a look at this. Suppose you're a Center City restaurant owner, a similar cafe-type joint known for their wine selection: Tria, for instance, since that's the only wine bar kind of place I've ever been to in Philly (disclosure: I have taught three classes at Tria's Fermentation School). How do you feel about the PLCB opening a take-out store inside a competitor's restaurant -- bad enough already, when wine take-out is illegal for you -- that sells wines "not available in traditional Wine & Spirits stores," and the PLCB staff is going to hold tasting events for those take-out wines right there in that other restaurant? I'd feel pretty damned hard done by.

This is a government agency. If Pennsylvania was not a control state, and it was a private business doing this -- Moore Brothers, for instance, and wouldn't it be a happy freakin' day if the PLCB were to go away and Moore Brothers could come to Center City? (disclosure: I have done no business whatsoever with Moore Brothers, they don't know me from Adam) -- hey, no problem! Actually, given the arcane and pointless circumlocutions of liquor law across the country, it would probably be a huge problem getting it licensed, but ethically there's no problem. It's two businesses reaching an agreement, and Garces would either be paying Moore Brothers for the exclusivity or they'd be paying him for the floor space, depending on who got the jump on who. And if Jon Myerow at Tria wanted to cut a similar deal with Canal's, he could.

But the PLCB is a government agency with monopoly retail power. Myerow can't just find another company to make a deal with, or do it himself, because that's illegal. Illegal! He's got to go to the PLCB, hat in hand, and beg to be part of this new program. As would the folks at Chick's, or Southwark, or DiBruno Brothers, or any number of wine-friendly cafes and restaurants.

And the PLCB will either grant them the boon or not, according to their own agenda. A government agency that has an ironclad monopoly on retail sales has no right deciding to essentially grant that right to retail to one business and refuse it to another. The PLCB is totally out of touch with reality. They are "acting like a business" when they aren't a business. They are a 'business' with whom it is illegal to compete, a 'business' with the full force of government enforcement and coercion behind them, a 'business' that can interpret the law to suit themselves without fear of contradiction.

I'm going to have to quote Buddy "I married a PLCB manager" Hobart to express what I feel about this new initiative. "What I say to the skeptical," said Buddy Hobart, president of Solutions 21, "to those of us in the world who believe we've arrived and don't need to improve: Look up the word arrogant in the dictionary." When you find that page, I believe you'll find the PLCB logo next to that definition.

Two notes at the end. First, I'm not pissed at José Garces, not in the least. I don't blame him for doing this, it's a sweet deal, and he would have been a fool not to take the PLCB up on it. And I do look forward to the opening of his new Village Whiskey, which is, yes, a whiskey bar, coming soon, probably May, at 20th and Sansom.

And of course, I'm shocked -- shocked, I tell you! -- that PhillyMag would run this story without a word about how this might unfairly impact other city businesses. What's that you say? Why yes, that's the same PhillyMag that co-sponsors the Philadelphia Whiskey Festival with the PLCB (which also runs one of these mini-stores right at the festival, while not allowing brewers to sell at beer festivals), and not a word of disclosure in the story. Good separation of advertorial and editising departments there.