More PLCB convenience

On  April 16th, 2011 the PLCB increased convenience, affecting the 4,200 residents of Renovo and the immediate surrounding area, by closing the State Store in town. They decided it was much more convenient — for the PLCB, apparently — to have the residents drive a minimum of 55 miles round trip to the State Store in Loch Haven: the only State Store in all 900 square miles of Clinton County, the only State Store for all 40,000+ residents of that county. 

Of course, the PLCB has said they are "actively looking" for a replacement spot in Renovo. I'm pretty sure that after five years some lard-assed PLCB real estate drone could have walked to every building in Renovo and the surrounding area. So I have to question on how "actively" they are "looking," or if they are just "actively" running their mouth trying to obfuscate the fact they aren't really doing anything. Last year I suggested the empty store at 112 St. Clair Street and Third St. in Renovo, which has parking and a loading dock, but no one "actively" did anything, and now it isn't available.

So how fair is this? Let's look at it the PLCB Way. The Almighty Liquor Code favors quotas: so many bar and restaurant licenses for so many residents, so many beer distributors and importing distributors per so many citizens...that sort of thing. Once it was one "R" license (a 'bar license,' roughly) for every 1,000 citizens, now it is 1 for every 3000. Apparently we don't need as many restaurants with beer and wine anymore; when did that change? What about State Stores? 45 years ago, there was one store for every 15,608 citizens. As of today, there is one store for every 21,225 citizens. Population went up, number of stores went down a lot, almost 25% down. That makes it more convenient for the PLCB and their ever-increasing operating costs, but what about you?

Based on that current ratio, Clinton County should have two State Stores, but they don't, and after five years they still don't (and of course, they're still screwing around with where they're going to have that one store!). I have to give the citizens credit for being so patient. Looking at the U.S. average, Clinton County should have seven liquor/wine stores, and they probably would under privatization, despite what the PLCB and its lockstep lackeys in the Legislature keep saying about a vast booze desert in upstate if privatization takes place.

It's a simple proposition. Renovo has two area grocery stores, one area beer distributor, and three area drug stores. Do you think any of those would have liquor and wine if allowed? You bet they would, because they know how to run a business already. Would the selection be better than the State Store? I guarantee it, in writing, and I'll eat my computer if I'm wrong! I'm not worried, it's an easy bet. Any selection is better than what the PLCB is providing now in Renovo: zilch, squat, zero, nada, nothing.

As long as we have the police-enforced monopoly State Store System, there will be less service in rural areas, because only the with the featherbedding incompetence of an institutionally corrupt and directionless agency like the PLCB can a state-backed complete monopoly not break even with the only liquor store in town. Privatization will at least allow somebody to provide what the PLCB won't, or can't. Privatization will bring small stores, large stores, specialty stores, and CONVENIENT stores. Will they carry everything? Of course not, but they will carry more than a closed store or a store that currently doesn't exist. A win for Clinton County! 

You have to wonder why Clinton County's representative in the House, Michael "Mike" K. Hanna, consistently votes against privatization. Is it because of the tiny handful of votes represented by the employees of the State Store in Lock Haven and their families? (Er...in Lock Haven for now, that is.) Or is it because he doesn't think his constituents can handle more than one liquor store? Or is it because he likes inconveniencing the thousands of tourists, hunters, and fishers that visit Clinton County every year, the hundreds of people who are working in the gas fields in Clinton, and the students (of legal age) and faculty at Lock Haven University? Because he does vote consistently against privatization (of course he does, he's the Democratic whip). If you live in Clinton County, why don't you ask him why he keeps voting against your convenience?

The PLCB vs. Real Business

Retail exists for the benefit of the consumer. The PLCB exists for the benefit of the people working at the PLCB. The consumer doesn't even enter into it, as admitted by the PLCB when they said they don't try to get the best pricing, they just pay whatever the producers ask. Now they say they want to "negotiate" as part of "modernization"; they aim to keep the difference between what they now pay and the lower price to maintain their bloated structure, not to lower prices for you and me. As if!

We deserve better. The State Store System had 82 years to prove their case, and the court of the public has said they failed. Just ask the people of Clinton County how well they are doing their job.

END IT, DON'T MEND IT. 

Minimums

If you like wine or whiskey that's not the usual, like I do, and you live in Pennsylvania, like I do, you'll soon find out that the State Store System doesn't want to make life easy for you. Not only are the prices gouging and the service almost non-existent, a lot of times the bottle you want isn't even on the shelf. You have to order it, through a service that the PLCB calls, with a straight face, "SLO." That stands for "Special Liquor Order," and I think the person who thought it up must have been subversive. I salute them; it's genius.

Having to order something's not that bad, though; even at private stores they don't carry everything. But where they really put the screws to you is with the minimum orders. Six is the most common, sometimes it's two (I've seen them list a "minimum order quantity of 1"), but you'll see twelve listed as well; I'm looking at a twelve minimum right now, Oban Little Bay single malt.

One order. Please to make minimum.

What kind of crap is that? Is this to keep our singleton consumer hands off so the restaurants can corner the market? Are they just being stupid? Again? Why do they put these ridiculous minimums in place?

What follows is a paraphrase of three conversations I've had on the topic with people who either work for the PLCB, work for their suppliers, or politically support it.

Apologists: No, no, you don't understand. It's not us! We don't put those minimums in place, it's the wholesaler!

Me: But the PLCB is the wholesaler. The only one.

No, no, the suppliers. We call them wholesalers sometimes. 

That's confusing, but that whole situation is confusing. So you're saying that the suppliers tell you that you have to sell these in lots of at least two, or six or twelve?

Yes, it's their fault. 

You want this whiskey? You must buy all this whiskeys!

Is this another one of the great deals you got with your fantastic buying power? That you have to do in your own stores what the suppliers tell you? Just kidding... But if that's true, then why don't I have to buy a minimum like that when I buy at a private store, in any other state or country? They don't force me to buy at least two of something.

Well, it's because of the stores out in Sullivan County, and Mifflin County, and [names eighteen other counties with only one or two stores]. If we have to ship to them only one bottle for a customer order, that's expensive and inconvenient, so we have the minimums.

That kind of makes sense if you're shipping one bottle to Sullivan County's one store, but don't you say that rural selection will go down if sales are privatized? What kind of selection do you have if you have to buy twelve of a bottle that costs $85?

You could get eleven friends to buy one. 

But then I'd be like that guy in Malvern the BLCE busted for reselling wine, wouldn't I?

We didn't tell you to do that. 

Yes, you did!

No, we didn't.

Many bottles, so many! You must buy them all. Or buy NONE!

Whatever. In any case, even if it does make sense for the far-flung stores, it doesn't make sense in the stores in Philly, and Pittsburgh, and the major suburbs where the store density is so much greater, does it? You're doing supply runs more often, to more stores, it would be easy to include small orders.

We can't. Those are the rules, because it has to be the same for everyone. 

Wait...you told me it was because the suppliers said you had to do it.

We didn't say that.

Yes, you did, not two minutes ago.

No, you're confused.


Here's my promise for you, for 2016. I'm going to ask the PLCB these questions, the hard questions, the ones that make no sense, in writing, and keep asking them until I get solid, acceptable answers that make sense, in writing. We'll see how that goes.

How can there be "public ownership" when the public has no say?

The continuing fiasco in Clinton County.

How the PLCB looks at the citizens

At their April 8th meeting, the PLCB decided to move the State Store which has been at 137 Main Street in Lock Haven for decades to a shopping center outside of town. They didn't ask anybody in local government, or any local businesses or any of the citizens...you know, those people who supposedly they work for. This has led to the Lock Haven City Council, along with Rep. Mike Hanna, the Clinton County commissioners, and Downtown Lock Haven Inc. having to fight the PLCB over who knows what is better for the community - the people that live and work there or the bureaucrats in Harrisburg.

Clinton County used to have two liquor stores, one in Lock Haven and one in Renovo. Two stores to service 900 square miles of Clinton County, until the Renovo store closed five years ago. Fear not, citizens! The PLCB has said they are "actively looking"  for a replacement spot in Renovo! So far, they've been actively looking four years, and counting. As one citizen said "If the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania wants to run the liquor business in this state, then it's the Commonwealth's responsibility to provide convenient locations for citizens to shop for liquor..."

I'm going to do my civic duty and let the PLCB know that there is an 8,100 sq. ft. property with 40 spots for parking at 112 St. Clair Street and Third St, Renovo, for lease. It was already a retail business and has a loading dock.  Explain to the citizens why you can't use it and why after all this time you haven't found out about it already.

Looking for 4 years, eh? FOUND IT!

Apparently the 75 mile round trip to the nearest state store from the outlaying areas of Clinton county fits the PLCB definition of "convenient"  Modernization won't fix that problem in Clinton county, or in Adams, Cameron, Fulton, Juniata, Mifflin, Montour, Perry, Snyder, Sullivan and Wyoming - other counties with just one store.

One of the cries of the people who for one reason or another want to keep this backward system is that in West Virginia some counties don't even have one store anymore. While that may be true, nobody in West Virginia has to drive as far as some people in Pennsylvania do - NOBODY.

The PLCB is obligated to serve all citizens of Pennsylvania. and the PLCB has failed the citizens of western Clinton County in this respect and continues to fail citizens across the state. Ask the people in Mountaintop if they were satisfied that it took two years to move a store 50 feet. Ask the citizens of Chester, a town of 45,000, if they are satisfied with their one state store. Ask the people that spend hundreds of millions out of state if they are satisfied, and ask the citizens who have consistently shown over four decades in every scientific poll that they want what most of the country thinks is a normal system over a state run system.

For 80 years the PLCB has only been concerned with itself, deciding what people should be allowed to buy, where to put stores, how many stores to have (there were over 750 at one point, there are 605 now), and when they should be open: like some overbearing, deaf deity bestowing its grace upon the unwashed masses.

The masses are getting sick and tired of it. Sick of a system that should have been done away with decades ago, sick of being told what they will be allowed to purchase by largely unknowing and incompetent overseers, sick of not having the convenience they see in other states, sick of the case law, sick of "interpretation," sick of graft and corruption, and sick of being treated like children.

The Pinchot legacy is alive and well in Pennsylvania - To make the purchase of alcohol as difficult and expensive as possible.

We are not safer, we are not better served and we are not satisfied and never will be with a state run system.

END IT, DON'T MEND IT!