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.

How losing six-pack sales may win us six-pack sales

The Malt Beverage Distributors Association (MBDA) is, and has been fighting the whole idea of six-packs in supermarkets (and convenience stores) for years. I can't blame them -- it's not really fair that Wegmans can sell six-packs while distributors cannot -- but it's not really fair that we can only buy them in bars, either. I also question the wisdom of pursuing it at this point, when beer has been sold in some Pennsylvania supermarkets for over a year. I'll explain that in a moment. Meanwhile, here's what they had to say about it, from the MBDA website. 

On April 14, 2010 the Pennsylvania Supreme Court heard oral argument in the Wegmans case. Representing MBDA was Robert B. Hoffman of Eckert Seamans law firm, who had successfully argued the Sheetz case for MBDA before the same Court in 2008.

Robert Heim of the Dechert law firm was brought in to argue on behalf of Wegmans.
It was an active court with the justices asking many questions of all parties. Those questions focused on whether it was sufficient that the Wegmans' Market Cafes qualify as a restaurant and whether the fact that they were part and parcel of and located within Wegmans made any difference. MBDA argued that the PLCB needed to look at the economic reality of the beer sales, which indicate that Wegmans Supermarket, not Wegmans Restaurant, is making the sales. Wegmans responded that it is within the PLCB's discretion to decide if interconnections between a supermarket and a restaurant disqualify a restaurant from holding a license to sell take-out beer. Wegmans [sic] contention is critical because, if correct, the standard of review that the Supreme Court must apply is to determine if the PLCB abused its discretion. The Supreme Court cannot simply substitute its own judgment for that of the PLCB's. However, if as MBDA contends, the issue is not one of abuse of discretion but simply whether or not the Liquor Code allows supermarkets to sell beer, which is what Wegmans Supermarket is doing, then the Supreme Court can apply its own analysis of whether or not the PLCB correctly interpreted the Liquor Code in reaching its decision to allow Wegmans to have a license.

MBDA made a very strong argument, both factual, during the multiple Wegmans hearings that stretched over two years and still continue today with regard to other supermarket chains, and legal, as to why Wegmans is not entitled to a license. We believe the Court will carefully consider all the issues raised and issue its decision by late 2010.

I grew up in Lancaster County, so let me use a farm analogy. The MBDA is locking the stable after their horse already ran away. Pennsylvanians have been buying beer at supermarkets for over a year. They have seen that the MBDA's arguments are hollow, bogus, bullshit. "Kids" aren't buying beer at supermarkets, children aren't irreparably freaked out by seeing beer for sale at supermarkets (any more than my nieces are in New York), drunks aren't hanging around the stores or running over people in the parking lot. What is happening is that beer distributors' businesses are slumping in value, because a large hole has been poked in their monopoly; people who wouldn't go into a bar to buy a six-pack are going into the Giant Eagle. 

More importantly, if the MBDA should prevail in this court case, and the Supreme Court rules that these licenses are void...it will be a disaster for the MBDA. If you give Pennsylvanians beer in supermarkets for a year...and then take it away, I guarantee you, they'll be furious. Their legislators will hear about it, the newspapers will write about it, hell, I'll sing about it! 

The MBDA should not have put all their eggs in the litigation basket. They should have been lobbying for the Legislature to fix up the very best deal that they could get. Instead...they're locking the stable door. Bad move. There were smarter plays to make. Winning may lose them everything. 

First, Do No Harm

Can you see those beer neons? Victory, Smithwick's, and a very rare Weyerbacher neon? I apologize for the quality of the iPhone shot, but it's all I had with me.

Why'd I take this picture? Because you're looking at a gas station that's selling beer in bottles, cans, and growlers...in Pennsylvania. It's the Interstate Market, just south of I-78 at Easton, and very much on the PA side of the Delaware River. And right under the big sign advertising the fuel prices was a sign that read "On tap today: Sierra Nevada."

I felt very much "out of control." How was this possible? More to the point, why does the MBDA have its panties in a terrible knot over Sheetz stores selling beer while not a word of protest accompanies this madness of selling beer right where people buy gasoline! Amazing. Cynically, I suggest it's because this one store represents no real threat to business, and the MBDA's cries over exposing children and driving dangers are simply bullshit, covering their real concern: Sheetz can offer bottleshop convenience in a lot of places. I would suggest that the MBDA would be much better off spending their time and money lobbying for a sixpack sale law for distributors.

Anyway, things were strangely peaceful. I didn't see one person sucking on a bottle of irresistably nearby and cold beer while they gassed up their car. No one peeled out of the place waving an open bottle out the window. There weren't raving crowds inside the store demanding beer, cold beer, open bottles of it right now!!!

No, what there was...was some people having lunch (sit-down tables), and some people buying sodas, and five nice taps and empty growlers waiting to be filled. Peaceful. Restrained.

Where's the threat? What's the big deal about selling beer at gas stations?

Tennis match continues: Wegmans beer sales now okay, says PA Commonwealth Court

The Pennsylvania Commonwealth Court has upheld the PLCB's original actions in granting licenses to two Wegmans supermarkets (in Bethlehem and Williamsport). [Follow-up: SHOCKER! The Malt Beverage Distributors Association has said it will appeal this ruling to the State Supreme Court! Wow! Didn't see that coming... Sheesh.] This AP story (the link is to the Wilkes-Barre Times Leader) tells the story in a somewhat cock-eyed manner; read that second sentence:

Beer sales at restaurants run by the Wegmans supermarket chain got court approval Monday in a pair of cases that expand where consumers can buy take-out alcohol.

The unanimous decision in Commonwealth Court allows patrons to circumvent beer distributors where customers may only purchase beer by the case. The court rejected arguments by the state beer retailers' association that Wegmans created a "legal fiction" by routing suds sales through cafes that are attached by an interior passageway to their grocery stores.

The ruling upheld license approvals by the Pennsylvania Liquor Control Board for Wegmans stores in Bethlehem and Williamsport. The Pennsylvania Malt Beverage Distributors Association sued last March to appeal the agency's decisions.

The bolded sentence makes me wonder who on the staff of the Times Leader decided this story should be cast as so unfair against beer distributors. It would have been more accurate to simply state "The unanimous decision in Commonwealth Court allows Wegmans to use the restaurant licenses they legally acquired to sell beer by the drink and up to two six-packs to go, just like other restaurant licenses."

But here's my takeaway from the article, in that this is a non-event:

"There hasn't been a change in the law, there hasn't been a change in restaurant licenses, there hasn't been a change in the LCB policy," said liquor board spokesman Nick Hays. "What has happened is some of these stores have made business decisions to incorporate full-service restaurants in their businesses."

Like I keep saying: this is not new law. This has been legal for years, it's just that no one's done it. Now that supermarkets like Wegmans are doing nice in-store restaurants, though, why not? It's just a restaurant. Is the MBDA against restaurants and bars?

The real problem here is the case law, the concomitant "2 sixers at a bar" law, and the artificial and arbitrary nature of booze laws in general in the Commonwealth. Supermarkets can't sell beer, beer stores can't sell groceries, delis can sell both...why?

There is no answer, because the reasons are ridiculous. Just one more Reason...