I checked in with BLCE on this for you and because our stores are not licensed establishments, BLCE does not perform compliance checks in them.She's going to follow up and check on how many times there have been "issues" at the stores on this and get back to me, but for now...looks like a definitive answer: no, the Bureau of Liquor Control Enforcement does not treat the State Stores like they do private licensed establishments. Which would seem to take a LOT of the wind out of the "we don't serve underage; privatization would mean chaos" anti-privatization argument.
Reasons why the Pennsylvania Liquor Control Board should be abolished, and The Almighty Liquor Code completely overhauled and rewritten, to reflect over 80 years of change since Repeal.
Friday, February 11, 2011
State Store Stings: a confirmation
As a follow-up to my previous post on whether or not the BLCE ever does "stings" using underage purchasers in the State Stores...I have a partial answer. I wrote to the BLCE and the PLCB about the issue, and just heard back from Stacey Witalec, Director of External Affairs at the PLCB (who has, by the way, been extremely helpful and pleasant over the past month or so; quite welcome). Here's what she had to say.
Maybe you could find out how many people they card a year, if those stats are available? Maybe that might also have something to do with no stings? they could just be doing a good job at not serving minors.
ReplyDeleteNo, read the post: they don't do them AT ALL. Because the State Stores are not the kind of licensed establishment they police. Nothing to do with the State Store clerks' performance on underage checks -- which I actually have no reason to doubt is less than good. But the only places that have stats on how many ID checks they do in a year are places like Wegmans, where they card everyone, young and old alike. Why doesn't the State Store do that? It's a good policy for the private stores...
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