After 80 years they still can't do inventory

Back in November when their latest annual report was released, the PLCB touted that they had updated their website. I guess reporting bad info more inaccurately is an improvement to them.

Here are just some of the things I found this week.

Laphroaig 25 #36279  - Listed as an "On Line Exclusive!!!" which is true, as long as you don't count the ones sitting on the shelf in Allegheny county.  Plus, you don't want to take advantage of the "restructured the website search engine" they've been bragging about by searching for Laphroaig 25 instead of Laphroaig Single Malt Scotch 25...because if you do, you won't find it.

Buffalo Trace White Dog #30570 - Also listed as an On Line Exclusive, but depending where you look one PLCB website says it isn't available and the the other one says it is. One listing won't find it if you look for Buffalo Trace White Dog and the other one will.

Laphroaig Cairdeas 2014 Edition #36485 - Another one that is listed as not available in the product catalog but is on the website.

Is not the On Line store listed as a store in the annual report?  If the PLCB product catalog says "There were NO Locations found for your selected search ..." and they claim "Store inventory is accurate as of the close of the previous business day", this pretty much shows the brick-and-mortar left hand hasn't a clue what the online right hand is doing. I guess judging by the overall lack of large retail or even alcohol industry experience in the PLCB we, the citizens, should not expect a well-run organization who can keep track of what products are available for sale or not.

Maybe they need to hire an outside consultant for a few million like last time, rename the stores again, and switch the apron colors. Maybe Governor-elect Wolf  can take the executives, after they sign another pledge not to take gifts (since the first one didn't seem to work), and make them wear old Nixon buttons. You know, the ones that said "I Am Not A Crook." That should show the public they are "modernizing" and perhaps save them for a few more months.

We deserve better. If your Representative or Senator doesn't think so, ask them why. Then hit them with some of the stuff you've learned here...and ask them again.

Privatization IS Modernization!

State Stores Lose Money...and the PLCB's proud of it

In the Bizarro World of the PLCB, where crap selection and lackadaisical service make a store "world-class," apparently it is also a good thing to have 45 stores (out of 620-ish, about 7%) losing money! Is this all about the PLCB's touted "Serve The Rural Areas With Booze!" program (see below; sorry about the Chinese Communist Party-style title, it's almost irresistible with the PLCB)? Not completely, it seems like it's more about the PLCB's business incompetence. Check out this piece at the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, which reports that "The LCB data obtained by the Tribune-Review show that the losing stores weren't all rural: Two stores in Brighton Heights and Downtown and one in Philadelphia were unprofitable in 2009-10."

But put aside how completely awful at business you have to be to not run a profit when you have a police-enforced monopoly. Joe "Da CEO" Conti says it's a good thing! Here he is in an AP story about yesterday's hearings:

Conti said a standard state store carries nearly 2,500 types of liquor and wine*, and that the board maintains stores in rural areas, even when they are not profitable, as a matter of fairness for consumers, which may not be the case under privatization.
"The bill cannot force a grocery store to bid for a license," said Dale Horst, the PLCB's director of retail operations. "If the PLCB can't make any money because the sales volume is simply not there, these areas may not be served at all."

Here's a thought: the number of stores in the state is set by the PLCB, not by law. They claim it's to cut down on drunkenness, on the ill effects of alcohol abuse. Really? Or is it because they've already got stores in all the areas that can make money using their horribly inefficient business model? Wouldn't it make more sense to go private, and allow the local grocery store to sell wine and sixpacks, and liquor if they want to, than to force a State Store to carry 2,500 different kinds of booze?

Check this assbackwards reasoning. They won't allow specialty stores in Philly and Pittsburgh to carry a large selection of wines and spirits, like the big stores right across the border, but they'll tell you that you can "easily" order from 30,000 selections (you know, odd sizes, and double-entered SLO/on-shelf items, but it's a lot, Joe Da CEO says so!) on their SLO system and have it delivered (to the store, not to YOUR house, that would be too easy). But then they turn around and force rural stores to carry a relatively broad selection of stuff -- and lose money on it! -- rather than pare it down to a reasonable selection...and let them order other stuff by SLO! I mean, if I lived in Snow Shoe, I suppose I'd be glad, but it's not like it makes sense.

Of course it doesn't. It's Bizarro State. Fix it. Privatize, boost the number of licenses, and kill the case law. Let the PLCB focus on enforcement. Fix the booze tax situation. Make booze law that serves the citizens instead of bureaucrats and business. Please.



*Compare that to the 13,000 SKUs of liquor, wine, and beer at the latest Total Wine to open in Florida. Or, if you'd rather, compare it to under 500 SKUs at almost any gas station or drug store in rural Maryland...which most rural Pennsylvanians would find incredibly convenient compared to having to drive an hour to get to a part-time State Store in one of the nine Pennsylvania counties that only have ONE State Store. Conti and Hereditary Union President For Life Wendell W. Young IV will tell you that lots of stores with a minimal selection is so much worse than one store in the 522 square miles of Adams County, or the one store in the 898 square miles of Clinton County, or one in the 405 square miles of Wyoming County...If only the Legislature would kill the case law, or change the ridiculously strict population limits on licenses, or...something. Something like privatization.     

Score One for the PLCB

Credit where it's due: the PLCB has done A Good Thing. PhillyMag food columnist and research editor Victor Fiorillo reported a few months ago that he'd been served what he thought was bogus Maker's Mark at Oscar's, a popular Center City dive-ish bar. He ordered another, surreptitiously poured it into a container, and left the bar with it. He sent it to the Bureau of Liquor Control Enforcement and filed a complaint. Two weeks later, the BLCE sent an agent to Oscar's, who checked the whole place -- the Maker's, the other booze, and the taplines (they weren't being cleaned properly) -- and took samples for analysis: six bottles of confiscated liquor.

The results are in: Oscar's put shite whiskey in a Maker's bottle. The BLCE found that the sample from Oscar's did not match a true sample; they found the same with a bottle of Ketel One. What's gonna happen? Fiorillo sez, "According to [the officer], her office’s legal department will now determine whether to issue a citation, after which a fine, suspension, or other penalty could be imposed." Excellent!

So. I slagged the PLCB last year for not giving a damn about consumer protection. God knows I've slagged PhillyMag for their booze coverage. I say thank you for a job well done to both today. This is exactly the kind of thing a state booze bureaucracy should be doing: protecting me from bad, mislabeled, fraudulent booze. I realize they're probably doing it because of taxes, but you know, it all works out. Cheers to Fiorillo for following through on this. And damn Oscar's for pulling the old switcheroo: that's about the worst crap a bar can pull. Don't know what the PLCB is going to do, but I'm dropping Oscar's from PA Breweries 4th Edition. It ain't much, but it's what I can do.

"...bringing any alcoholic beverage into Pennsylvania is illegal..."

Well, I got my response. I recently wrote to the PLCB to ask them how a private citizen, who happened to be in another state and saw a nice bottle of wine for sale, and wanted to bring that bottle home to Pennsylvania, could do their duty to the Commonwealth, fill out a form, pay the taxes, or so on. How could we do the right thing in order to bring this into the State and be square, in other words?

After two weeks -- a relatively short time, considering it came from the PLCB's chief legal counsel -- I got my response this morning. I'd publish it here, only it came by e-mail in the form of a PDF image, which has so far resisted four different attempts to convert it to text. No problem; I've successfully uploaded it to Scribd, and you can see it below.

Please note, before we go any further, that they took pains to note that the State Police Bureau of Liquor Control Enforcement enforces the liquor laws, and the PLCB issues legal opinions that are binding on licensees only. "Since you are not a Board licensee, the following is offered for your guidance and information only." Ah. Kinda like the fine print on the video poker machines that Pennsylvania seems completely unable to stamp out. Okay. With that said, let's see what their opinion is.

The third paragraph puts it pretty damned simply: "The general rule is that bringing any alcoholic beverage into Pennsylvania is illegal, with limited exceptions." You have to be "the Board, a manufacturer, or the holder of a sacramental wine license or of an importer license" to transport or possess any liquor or wine within the Commonwealth that has not been purchased from the State Store System or a state winery. "Accordingly, you cannot simply cross the border into a neighboring state, purchase a bottle of wine and return to Pennsylvania, as both the importation and possession of such wine would be illegal."

However...turns out that you can bring in up to one gallon free of tax and mark-up...from outside the United States. So, New Zealand is okay; New Jersey, no way. And if the Board requests it, you have to produce evidence of such travel, the receipt proving you actually bought the stuff there (and not, for example, in New Jersey), and "an affidavit indicating that the purchaser was allowed to bring the liquor in duty-free" (no instructions on who would issue such an affadavit...). And before you think this completely painless, "The Board assesses a service charge for this importation." Of course they do.

You can receive wine and liquor from outside the Commonwealth as a gift, "so long as the proper paperwork is submitted to and cleared by the Board." And you pay the service charges and mark-up, and by the way, you have to pay the taxes to the Department of Revenue, so you have to talk to them, too.

Feeling like Kafka yet? Remember that you do have the ability to purchase wine from outside the Commonwealth! You may purchase it online! And then have it shipped to one of the State Store System's stores (of your choosing!). There are a few conditions, of course: the wine cannot be one listed on the Board's Internet catalog; you'll have to sign an affidavit that you are 21 and purchasing the wine for your own "use;" and you can't get more than 9 liters in a month. Oh, and there's a shipping charge, a handling charge, the 18% Johnstown Flood Emergency Tax, and 6% sales tax (plus an additional 1% in Philadelphia or 2% in Allegheny County). Bet they get a lot of traffic on that one.

In short, they conclude, "...there is no proper protocol for crossing the border to purchase wine in another state and then bring it back to Pennsylvania." And that's pretty much it.

(The letter was copied to the Bureau of Liquor Control Enforcement, to the Senior Director of the Office of Regulatory Affairs, the Director and Assistant Director of the Bureau of Licensing, and the Press Secretary. I'm not intimidated, I refuse to be.)

The beautiful thing is, they don't have to provide a proper protocol, or the reasoning for why that is not allowed. That's the responsibility of the Legislature, by way of The Almighty Liquor Code. Why is it that way? Because the State Store System and the PLCB were set up to be a total monopoly -- it's the Pennsylvania Liquore CONTROL Board, after all -- and you can't have a monopoly that leaks around the edges.

Oh, it does, of course; people bring booze into the State every day. You know it, I know it, the Bureau of Liquor Control Enforcement, everyone knows it -- except the PLCB, apparently, as Joe "CEO" Conti continues to hold that this is a very minor problem. Sure it is. Which is why there are all those big liquor stores so close to the border in Delaware and Maryland, and why the out-of-state liquor stores run full-page ads in the Inquirer.

I am deeply offended by the very idea of this monopoly. I drive to visit my in-laws in New York and Virginia several times a year. I'm an American. What right does the State of Pennsylvania have to tell me where I can or cannot buy a bottle of liquor? If it's all about the taxes, why not make it easy for me to pay the damned things? No, instead, we're told that "bringing any alcoholic beverage into Pennsylvania is illegal." That's asinine!

Let me make this perfectly clear. I deeply appreciate the time that the lawyers at the PLCB took to write this response. I do; I have no doubt they know who I am and why I wanted to know, this site gets hits from the PLCB multiple times a week, but they responded, and they didn't mince words. I don't hold the PLCB or the BLCE responsible for this ridiculous situation.

I blame The Almighty Liquor Code and the Pennsylvania Legislature. For 75 years we have been under the patronizing thumb of this monopoly. We have no choice except theirs, we have no options but theirs, we have no way to change it or make it better. This is not the fault of the PLCB. Rather, the PLCB and all it stands for -- monopoly, conflict of interest, political patronage, lack of choice, lack of response -- is the fault of the continuing refusal of the Pennsylvania Legislature to lift this Stalinist, paternalistic, antiquated system from our shoulders. It's 2009: could we be allowed to buy a bottle of wine wherever we want? Is that so much to ask? Or do you vant to see our papers?

Read the full text of the PLCB's response on Scribd here

A Plea to the PLCB

Okay, that's six posts here in four days. I've got to ask the PLCB: would you please stop making bad decisions so I can get some paying work done?

Thanks. And get the Legislature to vote you out of existence, too. Make my life a lot easier, I tellya...

"If the LCB were to find a cure for cancer..."

Either Governor Rendell or his press secretary, Chuck Ardo, apparently thinks people like me -- and maybe you -- are just anti-PLCB cranks. Check this out from that Pittsburgh Post-Gazette piece on the courtesy contract controversy:

Such criticism was to be expected from longtime critics of the PLCB, countered Chuck Ardo, a spokesman for Mr. Rendell. "The LCB decided their retail staff needed some training to ensure courteous service," he said. "If the LCB were to find a cure for cancer they would find a reason to criticize it."

"Cure for cancer"? In light of what's been going on lately, it seems more likely that someone at the LCB's brother-in-law would be peddling Laetrile, Chuck, and yeah, I'd criticize that.

In fact, even your own boss criticized the courtesy contract controversy...at least, until someone got to him and, er, pointed out the facts. Check it out, and how Chuck spun it right around (emphasis added, cuz I wouldn't want you to miss the important stuff...):

Mr. Rendell, when asked about the customer service training contract at a news conference, said it was the first he'd heard of it -- and of the relationship between the consulting firm's president and an PLCB manager. "If it's true, it's something that should be corrected," Mr. Rendell said.

But the governor made that comment before he had all the information about the contract, Mr. Ardo said. "He is not calling for the contract to be rebid," said Mr. Ardo. "He answered instinctively [because] the way the question was asked it seemed there might be a problem, but once the details unfolded it was clear there is no problem."

Clear? You bet! It's clear to me that Rendell's "instinctive" response to hearing about a fairly large state contract being let to the husband of a high-ranking agency manager was that it was "something that should be corrected." How much more information do you need? That it's "in compliance" with the state's Adverse Interest Act, according to LCB spokesman Nick Hays? Yeah, that's a tough standard. Check out the Post-Gazette's careful, damning parsing of that:

Hays said the contract was "in compliance" with the state's Adverse Interest Act, which among other things prohibits state employees from influencing contracts in which they have an interest.
The act also prohibits state employees from having an "adverse interest" in any contract with the state agency that employs them. The act defines that interest as being "a stockholder, partner, member, agent, representative or employee" of a company seeking such a contract. Hays said Susanne Hobart does not do any work for her husband's firm.

Let me get this straight. Is this coming from the same state agency that recently required an investor in Philadelphia brewpub Earth Bread + Brewery to sell his investment to his wife (because he was also an investor in another small Pennsylvania brewery, which might influence the managers of EB+B to buy beer from that brewery), and then further required his wife to sign an affadavit that her husband would never profit from her investment? Really?

Did they require Mrs. Hobart to sign a similar affadavit? They're married. The state's "Adverse Interest Act" doesn't cover that? I guess that's one of the "details" Chuck was talking about.

The Gov should follow his instincts more often.

More People Upset by the PLCB's Latest Off-Pitch Idiocy

It's not just me that thinks the PLCB is crazy, stupid, and wasteful spending $173,000 of Pennsylvania taxpayers' money (in a budget crisis...) on teaching PLCB clerks to say 'hello' and 'thank you' (I hope they're not training them to say "Have a nice day!"). Check out this from the Chambersburg Public Opinion:

But let us take our own stab at it.
Pennsylvania liquor store employees: When conducting transactions and serving customers during your work hours, be solicitous and respectful, smile, and always say please and thank you.
There! We just fulfilled the fundamental intent of this insane PLCB endeavor, and it cost you less than a buck.

Much obliged.

NBC affiliate WCAU/Channel 10 in Philadelphia had a proper response, and pointed out that Philadelphia's Department of Licenses & Inspections, another agency with a bad customer service reputation, was getting free customer service training, courtesy of the Ritz-Carlton Hotel in town.

Shameful.
Not only are you (the taxpayer) footing the $175,000 bill for a better experience at your local liquor store in Pennsylvania. Guess who gets that money? Turns out you're padding the pockets of a man who is married to one of the Liquor Control Board's top-level employees, according to the Inky. How convenient.
But there's no conflict.

Suuuuure there isn't!

The Lehigh Valley Express-Times was quite a bit more blunt about the whole thing:

Pennsylvania's antiquated system for selling booze and wine has been out of date for decades. But don't look for the state to give up the cash-cow system and its cache of patronage jobs anytime soon.
Maybe the powerful bureaucrats can teach their brothers-in-law how to say hello and thank you before they get the job.
It would save us all a few bucks.

Ouch!

But the PLCB -- and the lucky Buddy Hobart of Solutions 21 -- knew people might be skeptical (at least, skeptical of the program; looks like the whole nepotism thing caught them off-guard). From the initial story:

"What I say to the skeptical," said Buddy Hobart, president of Solutions 21, "to those of us in the world who believe we've arrived and don't need to improve: Look up the word arrogant in the dictionary."
Added the LCB's Conti: "This is a vast adventure, and it's one we have to take. We know some people will critique us, but we like that. It only makes us better."

Hello? What I say to the Buddy is that it's all about the money his firm is getting paid for these truly questionable services. Because no one on earth believes that the PLCB has "arrived" or doesn't need to improve. Actually, that's not quite true; as I've said before, I don't want the PLCB to improve, I want them to go away.

And Conti? "A vast adventure"? "We like that. It only makes us better"? Please! Spare me the happy talk. Learning to say "Please" and "Thank you" is not a vast adventure.

What you should be doing is creating a divestiture plan, a plan to make the most possible money for the State by dismantling the State Store System, selling off its assets, setting up a new licensing system for private liquor stores that will actually benefit the State instead of the store owners, and minimizing the impact on the PLCB clerks and the costs of privatization.

That would be a vast adventure worth taking.

The PLCB's Swedish cousin

A reader (thanks, reader!) sent me a link to a post at Reason Magazine's Hit & Run blog about a poster, a real paper poster, done by Systembolaget, the Swedish state booze monopoly. See if you don't think that Systembolaget and the PLCB sound eerily similar:

"Why Can't You Guys Buy Wine at the Supermarket?"

Imagine that you suddenly get this question from a tourist.

Perhaps you know exactly how you should answer.

If not, it might be good to know what the results of a recent survey showed: The Swedish alcohol monopoly saves many lives each year.

If strong beer (Note: beer with more than 3.5% alchohol per volume; really, 3.5%), wine and spirits were sold in grocery stores consumption would increase by 30%, researchers believe. And they stress that this is a conservative estimation—the increase could be more.

They calculate that there will be approximately 1,600 more deaths each year, 14,000 more assaults and around 16 million more sick days.

So the monopoly makes a huge difference for a lot of Swedes.

And because it will only be around as long as people want it to be, we at Systembolaget have to do everything in our power to make sure our customers are satisfied.

This has resulted in our having perhaps the world's largest assortment of strong beer, wine and spirits.

(And an assortment one not finds in Stockholm and Gothenburg, but also in Jokkmokk and Töreboda.)

Wow. Separated at birth, or what?

Let me parse this my way. "We're saving you from booze. If we didn't, you'd drink yourself to death, you idiots; we know this, because of Science. That's why we sell you all the great booze you need, from the cities to the reindeer-herding stations in East Jebip. Tell your friends."

I mean, it doesn't even make sense. If booze really is as scary, uncontrollably bad as these guys say...why sell it at all? Prohibition would be the course of a truly caring state. Save us!

I put the full text of the poster up, but you should go read what Reason said...and check out the paternal-looking Swedish øldska fårtskë on the poster. Oh, man, the PLCB should just lift this!