Not a Mistake, Not perfect...Good Enough

Last post I asked if we would be calling Senator McIlhinney's privatization proposal "McIlhinney's Mistake." Here's what I thought we'd see in it:

Best guess at that, from things he's been saying: bars and restaurants should be allowed to sell full bottles of wine and spirits to go, the State Stores stay open, the case law stays and the beer in grocery stores situation remains in its ridiculous "cafe needed" state, and the PLCB remains as the state's sole wholesaler...and that's going to be "privatization," McIlhinney's Mistake-style.

Here's how that went when we got a revamped version of his SB100, yesterday:

• Beer distributors and bar/restaurant/deli/hotel license holders can sell wine and spirits to go (for an $8,000 annual fee ($4K for just wine/just spirits, and $2K for "specialty spirits," single category), and a limit of four bottles per sale unless you're a distributor); there are about 14,000 such licensees, and another 1,000 in escrow (some kept there deliberately by anti-drinking types).
• The State Stores stay open
• Distributors can sell sixpacks (as packaged by the manufacturer...killjoys); taverns can sell up to a case
• Grocery stores still need a deli license -- no new licenses created -- and a cafe area, some minor restrictions on what can be sold at each register area are loosened
• The PLCB remains as sole wholesaler; study of situation required after 2 years, if divestiture will not have "significant impact on the fiscal stability of the Commonwealth," the Legislature may consider selling the wholesale operations
• PLCB as wholesaler is required "to buy any specific liquor or alcohol requested by a permit holder"
• PLCB will ship to "permit holders" by the case for a fee; manufacturer/distributor can drop-ship directly to permit holders 
• State Stores get "flexible pricing"
• Licensees get an 18% discount on PLCB prices
• Elimination of the Johnstown Flood Tax!
• Direct wine shipment to citizens
• "Windfall" money goes to senior citizen property tax relief
• All retail liquor stores (State and private) to have consistent hours: 8 AM to 11 PM.
• PLCB and permit holders are prohibited from selling private labels (buh-bye, TableLeaf!)
• Creation of a Wine Industry Promotion Board (nothing about brewers or distillers)
• Did I mention that the State Stores stay open?

 Well...My major issues, in another bullet point list.

• The State Stores stay open, and with NO formula in place to close them. That's left to the discretion of the PLCB. Bad idea, verging on very bad idea. Rip off the band-aid.
• Why stop at sixpacks? Take away all restraints on volumes: distributors and taverns can both sell everything from single bottles to kegs. And why "as packaged by the manufacturer"? Why no mixed six? They'll be pulling the wings off flies, next. If they do keep the stupid "compromise with no one" sixpack minimum, I nominate "as packaged by the manufacturer" as the first thing to go in the amendment process. It's just petty. If the store doesn't want to sell mixed sixes, they can make that a policy. Doesn't have to be a law.
• Limits on wine and spirits sales for taverns/hotels/delis. If you're going to charge everyone $8,000, everyone should get the same deal.
• Kick the licenses out of escrow with a "use it or lose it" clause. Any license unsold in escrow for more than two years reverts to the state.Why should they be wasted just because some Mennonite doesn't want me to have a drink?
• Kill the cafe: this is an advantage for large supermarkets and hurts small grocers. 
• End the police-enforced monopoly.
• Privatize wholesale. Period.

Now...what I think we might get? Not much. I think this bill is either going to pass with relatively minor tweaking, or it's going to die. I'm hoping for more complete "package reform," and I'd really like to see an end to the insulting police-enforced monopoly, but I'm not holding my breath.

Actually, my hat's off to the Senator. I'd love to see all my major issues dealt with, and I do think that leaving the PLCB as wholesaler is going to be a disaster, but...he always said the hard part was coming up with something that could pass. I think he may have finessed that. He won't get any Democrat votes -- and bad cess to them, and especially the mule-mouthed Senator Ferlo -- but I think this could get 26 Republicans. I've got my fingers crossed.

And on that note...write your senators! Urge the Republicans to vote for this, and beg the Democrats to abstain. CC the Governor and make sure the Republican Senators you write to know that he needs this bill; CC your local representative to they know how you're pushing your senator. You know the union's doing it. Get off your ass and make it happen; this is the best chance privatization's had in 75 years. Don't let perfect be the enemy of good.

Here's what I wrote to my Senator:

Dear Senator Tomlinson,

Senator McIlhinney's proposal for eventual liquor privatization is out, and I'm sure you have the details. The proposal doesn't close the State Stores, doesn't slash jobs, keeps the wholesale monopoly, covers the revenue, provides for senior citizen tax relief, gives Pennsylvanians at least some of the beer package reform they've been begging for, and gives beer distributors an affordable way to add wine and spirits to their businesses. Most importantly, it ADDS competition, choice, and convenience to wine and spirits retail for Pennsylvanians, without harming family-owned beer distributors.

It seems like a very good compromise, one that the House can approve, and that the Governor can sign for a much-needed legislative victory for the Republicans. I hope I can count on your vote for this proposal in its final form; it is, as I've told you, very much a ballot box issue for me.

Sincerely,
Lew Bryson

Feel free to use some or all of it. DO IT!

McIlhinney's Mistake?

McIlhinney's Mistake.

Is that what we're going to be calling the liquor "privatization" bill that comes out of the Senate's Law and Justice Committee next week? Senator Chuck McIlhinney is the majority chair of the committee, and he's telling anyone who will listen that he'll have a bill ready before the end of the legislative session on June 30, a privatization bill.

He's held three hearings -- generally described as "stacked" by reporters across the state, and they mean stacked against privatization -- in which he allowed the Democratic members of the committee free rein to pontificate, bloviate, and in Senator Ferlo's case, desecrate the reputations of several public figures, including the commander of the PA State Police. Only a few people who favored privatization who were allowed to speak, and at the end of their presentations and following grilling, McIlhinney would dismiss their testimony with a breezy "that's what you're saying, but that's not what's going to happen" statement from his chairman's position.

McIlhinney says he held these hearings to bring out the facts so he and his colleagues could make a decision on privatization. Really? First, be honest and admit that NO Democrats will vote for privatization, no matter what they hear: on this issue they're owned by the unions, and they do NOT want to see the Governor gain any legislative victories when they sense his re-election chances as weak. Those are their main issues. Second, everything McIlhinney's been saying indicates that his bill is going to be the same bizarre plan he's been talking about for almost two years.

Best guess at that, from things he's been saying: bars and restaurants should be allowed to sell full bottles of wine and spirits to go, the State Stores stay open, the case law stays and the beer in grocery stores situation remains in its ridiculous "cafe needed" state, and the PLCB remains as the state's sole wholesaler...and that's going to be "privatization," McIlhinney's Mistake-style.

Tell your Senator you want REAL privatization, not McIlhinney's Mistake. You want the State Stores gone in six months, Washington State style. You want privatization of wholesale. You want beer, wine, and spirits sold in the same store, and at least 2,000 of those stores -- whatever they are -- in the state. You want an immediate and simple end to the Case Law and its stupid brother, the 12-pack Law. You want an immediate end to the Police-Enforced Monopoly; Pennsylvanians can buy booze anywhere they want and bring it back into the state. And you want it all, now. 

If the Senator comes out with a real privatization bill? GREAT! But we need to get this done. We can't afford a mistake. Not McIlhinney's Mistake.

Money from privatization rolls in out in Washington

Just sent this to the members of the Pennsylvania Senate Law and Justice Committee:

To the honorable chairmen and members of the Senate Law and Justice Committee,

Greetings. I've watched all three of the hearings your committee has held on privatization of the current state monopoly on wholesale and retail sale of wine and spirits. One concern that seemed to come up time and again was that of consistency of revenue. You were presented with a baffling array of projected numbers: how much the Commonwealth would lose under privatization, how much it would gain, the amount various other states have lost or gained by privatizing.

One number that seemed to have escaped notice, however, is this one: $78 million. That's the increase in revenue from spirits sales that the Washington State government has seen in the year since they privatized their state-owned monopoly. If you're interested, the details are here.

(Please note that the $425 million figure in this article includes the $38 million the state made from the auction of retail licenses; the $78 million increase is taxes only.)

So if you're thinking about how privatization will affect revenue, and if that important consideration has an effect on your vote, please remember that privatization -- if done correctly -- can indeed increase revenue. We don't need to speculate. Washington has provided us with a real world experiment, and the outcome shows the benefits of privatization.

Thank you, and I hope you will consider all angles of this issue. I have high hopes of a good outcome from your deliberations, as this is a very important issue for me.

Lew Bryson

Yeah, I know: Washington raised the fees/taxes/grab on liquor, and that may be some of the nut. Trust me: they know that too. But even with higher taxes/fees/blood money, the prices in Washington -- as you'll see if you read the piece linked above -- are still close to what they were before. Without the increases? Who knows how low they might have gone, but the fact is, what kept them down was competition.

The Case Law, The Case Law, The Case Law. What will it take?

Lots to talk about with the final McIlhinney Hearing taking place yesterday, but one thing comes to the top: so-called "package reform," which is Harrisburgese for "gently adjusting the Case Law."

Look, I have a radical idea for "package reform." Step aside from liquor privatization for the ten minutes it should take to accomplish this! Separate bill, NOW:

"The Case Law Was A Stupid Mistake And We're Sorry" Bill, being a bill to eliminate ALL volume restrictions on individual beer sales by licensed retailers immediately.

Fill in the details -- that's what all those lawyers they keep chained up in caves under the Capitol Building are for -- remove all references to case/sixpack restrictions on sales in the Liquor Code, put it to a vote. No deals, no delays, no trade-offs, no suck-ups. Done.

Over 80% of Pennsylvanians oppose the Case Law; and the Legislature's been diddling around with changing it since I moved back to Pennsylvania in 1991. NOTHING HAS CHANGED. Why do we keep voting for these idiots?

Don't just read this. Copy it, send it to your legislator, and ask them WHY they can't do this one simple thing. Will it piss off the tavern owners, because now beer distributors can sell sixpacks? Sure, some of them. Will it piss off the beer distributors, because now the supermarkets with tavern licenses can sell cases and kegs? Sure, some of them. Will it make the state's brewers happy? Probably, they'll likely sell more beer. Will it make almost every beer-drinking Pennsylvanian happy? HELL YEAH! Hmmm...will it make the beer wholesalers happy? Actually, I don't know, but...

Come on! It's not going to make everyone happy, but it's going to make literally millions of us beer drinkers overjoyed!

Give Rep. Petri an Earful

Rep. Petri -- well-known as fairly soft on privatization -- has a liquor privatization survey up on his website. It's lengthy, it's somewhat slanted, but I'd encourage you to take it, and give thoughtful -- not shouty-stupid -- answers. We need to give him something to think about, not an excuse to dismiss. Beer is very much included, by the way.

I find this interesting, because it indicates that Petri does believe that some kind of privatization bill will come back from the Senate -- likely at the very last moment Senator Chuck "Footdragger" McIlhinney can engineer -- and he wants to be ready. We need to help him.

When he asks you where you want to buy booze, tell him YES. Sell it in groceries, gas stations, convenience stores, Target. Why not? Wegmans has a great record on preventing underage sales, and no gas station chain will want the fines that come with such sales. When he asks you what you want to buy there, tell him YES: beer, wine, and spirits. Again, why not? 

When he asks you "Do you think that Pennsylvania should retain the wholesale operation in order to avoid raising taxes to fill the loss of approximately $80 million in revenue?", tell him NO! Tell him that his numbers are speculative and pessimistic, and don't take into account all the revenues from a private system; privatization is going to be, at worst, a wash. And if it isn't? We already have some of the highest liquor and wine taxes in the country; maybe it's time the rest of the Commonwealth's citizens paid a little more of their fair share.

And it is a little: $80 million is a lot of money, but it's a tiny shred of the state's annual budget; they could recoup most of it by cutting out some of the ridiculous overspending at the Legislature itself (starting with the size of the thing). The main point here is that if Pennsylvania retains the wholesale operation, we're still leaving selection in the hands of a committee in Harrisburg: not what we're in this for at all, and he needs to understand that.

Take the survey, and think about it as you do. What do YOU really want from privatization?

• Lower prices
• Better in-store selection
• More stores 
• Better service
• An end to the police-enforced monopoly
• Wine and beer sales in supermarkets, drugstores, convenience stores
• End the case law
• End the state wholesale monopoly

Think about it...and then write your own senator and representative and tell them. And then tell them that this is a ballot issue for you, and you'll be watching how they vote. You might as well...because every State Store union member is.

Credit where it's due: good service at Good Old Store #0909

Because I don't lie about reality like the PLCB Partisans... I just got some of the very best service I've ever had at Good Old Store #0909 here in Newtown. I had to get a quick couple bottles for a late dinner decision -- no time to run to Jersey! -- so I grabbed some prosecco (easy enough, though the sign for the section said "Champagne!"), picked up a big bottle of cheap cabernet (impulse buy), and then...realized I don't really know white wine outside of sauvignon blanc, riesling, and gewürztraminer.

So I see this younger woman in a clerk apron who I'd never seen there before, and I asked her: I don't really drink much white wine, and I need some dry white for a recipe; any advice? She put down what she was stocking and said "Sure!" (1st plus), and then asked me what I was cooking (2nd plus). I told her, and she said that just about any pinot grigio would do, and the Barefoot's on sale for $6. Done. (And please don't judge me -- or her -- about the Barefoot: I'm just deglazing a pan, and then we'll probably drink it as spritzers while sitting by the firepit. I drink better whiskey than you. Probably. Whatever.)

She was pleasant about it too, a lot more pleasant than I've encountered there before. The guy at the register was, I think, a trainee, or maybe the manager was just hovering over him to be a jerk. He got the stuff done, and I was out.

Like I keep saying: if they delivered better service, I wouldn't be making such a fuss about privatization. If they weren't so dead-set on standardized selection, I wouldn't be making such a fuss about privatization.

But...they generally don't, they certainly are, so I am.

The Selection Lie

When the PLCB Partisans have made their statements about how dangerous privatization is -- ignoring the fact that it doesn't seem to be causing chaos or undue harm in the states that have it -- and how many jobs it's going to cost -- their jobs, usually, which isn't exactly objective, and ignores the jobs that privatization will inevitably create (if we don't do it the stupid way Senator McIlhinney wants to; yeah, Senator, I said stupid, and if you want to talk to me about it, you already have my email) -- and how much 'revenue' it will cost the state -- which 1)it won't, and 2)that's not the point anyway -- they often get around to saying something like, "And you know, privatization will mean less selection. The private stores don't carry as many different wines and liquors as the LCB does, and supermarkets won't carry a lot of your craft beers; they'll only carry what sells."

Can we just say "bullshit" and be done with it? Because you'd have to be feeble-minded to believe that argument (which really makes me worry about my own state representative, Frank Farry, who actually quoted it to me as the main reason he voted against HB790). All you have to do, quite literally, to disabuse yourself of this notion is go to one of the 160-odd Pennsylvania grocery stores that are now selling beer and look at their beer selection. The Wegmans in Downingtown, for instance, where I bought this bottle of Brooklyn Local 1.

Or you could go to the Whole Foods in Plymouth Meeting, where they even have six taps for filling growlers. But before you make this silly argument, do the really simple thing and just go look at what privately-owned supermarkets are already selling in Pennsylvania! And then stop blathering this ludicrous "talking point" that the state store clerk's union or the Malt Beverage Distributors Association gave you.

It's not just beer, either. Want to see what wine and liquor selection looks like in a privately-run store? Just go look at one! They're right across the border: Joe Canal's, Total, Roger Wilco, Moore Brothers... Are there corner bodegas in the side streets of Trenton that have tiny selections? Sure there are, just like the "grocery" selection at a 7-11 is dwarfed by what you can get at Wegmans, or Giant Eagle, or at an Aldi's, for that matter. That's the point: they don't all have the same stuff, so some of them have a lot more.

But really. If you're making these arguments, or even thinking about considering them as possible...Just. Go. Look. It's all you have to do to realize that they're pure delusion, lies, distortions of truth. If we break open wholesaling in this state -- and it can be the same "system" as the beer wholesalers, they're doing a great job supplying us with multitudes of beers! -- the private stores will get the selection. And it will be the selection you want, not the selection some PLCB committee in Harrisburg has decided you're going to get.

Tell Senator McIlhinney and your state senator that you want real privatization in Pennsylvania: privatized retail and privatized wholesale. If we don't get it all, there's no point. Happily, McIlhinney does get one thing:

"The committee's chairman, Sen. Charles McIlhinney, R-Bucks, also attacked part of Corbett's justification for selling private wine and liquor store licenses, the idea that a windfall of $1 billion or more would result. "If this is about a money maker, I don't think that's really where we should be going with it," McIlhinney told reporters after the hearing. "If we're going to do privatization and try to make more convenience out there, it shouldn't be some way to generate a billion dollars and then give it away."

Right on that one, Chuck. Now get your head straight on the rest of it. Don't compromise with people who aren't going to make a deal.