Citizens Urge PLCB to Quit Liquor Business To Improve Customer Convenience and Generate Revenue

Pennsylvania, Feb. 28, 2015 /PRNewswire/ -- Commonwealth Citizens - the people forced to shop at State Stores,  issued the following statement today after the House vote passing House Bill 466:

"We look forward to working with Gov. Wolf and the Senate to pass a common-sense free market system that we have been telling our Legislators about for over four decades. The free market will allow entrepreneurs to grow and expand their businesses, hiring more people, paying taxes, and being part of their communities all over Pennsylvania."

The Citizens added, "The PLCB is a pain in the asset that continues to set records in total sales by limiting choice, preventing us from going anywhere else, and withholding a use tax while calling it "profits." Last year alone, the agency took more than $565 million in "profits," transfers and taxes from the Citizens and gave almost nothing in return to this Commonwealth. It makes perfect sense to sell it off so that people have a choice in what to buy, not limited to what somebody in Harrisburg thinks they should buy. This will put triple the number of people to work in the industry."

The Citizens urged Senate lawmakers to support House Bill 466, and reject  State Rep. Gene DiGirolamo's outdated proposal to modernize the Pennsylvania Liquor Control Board (PLCB), saying that it will never improve customer convenience like the free market can.

HB 466 would remove antiquated caps like the paltry 600 state stores, increasing store totals to 1,800. Allow Sunday hours of operations to any who wanted to buy the license; allow 825 grocery stores to to open their own wine stores inside or adjacent to themselves, and allow family-owned beer distributors to become not only one stop shops but to also arrange direct shipment of wine to consumer's homes along with delivery services of their entire order!

These changes, among others, would generate untold consumer satisfaction, bring the state into the 21st century, provide more tax revenue through greater sales and less border bleed, and would grow annually as people got used to the freedoms denied them for so long.

- The Citizens represent most of the 12 million people in the Commonwealth who work in the southeast, northeast and central, western and all parts of  Pennsylvania in supermarkets, drug stores, food processing plants, government services, manufacturing facilities, nursing homes, professional offices, and all businesses, except Pennsylvania's Wine and Spirits Stores.