Reason #11: It's Your Move

Try to imagine something more frustrating for a licensee, a business owner, than trying, trying honestly and energetically, to do the right thing by The Almighty Liquor Code, only to have the rules change or be re-interpreted, or find out that there's another set of rules you didn't even know about. You'll be crossing your eyes, ready to scream about how you just want to do the right thing if only you could figure out what the right thing is. Hey, that's what lawyers are for, y'know? So pony up, buy one, and go do battle. That's how things get done.

Then you can really lose your mind when your lawyer writes up your paperwork, sends it to Harrisburg, and...
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Reason #11:

Harrisburg Is A Black Hole

I've heard the same story many times from licensees. They've got a perfectly reasonable request, one that's clearly allowed under The Almighty Liquor Code, and they properly make it through channels, and they sit, and sit, and sit waiting for a response. Repeated telephone calls, visits, letters seem to have no effect...and sometimes it just goes too long. An event they needed a special permit for, a beer they tried to get registered -- with the willing assistance of the brewer or importer -- a routine license approval that was the only thing keeping them from opening their doors and doing business...whoops. Sat on the desk too long.

It's an arbitrary time period for these things. Or maybe not; there have been rumors of state legislators using influence to speed up or delay applications. I don't know if any of it's true, but it certainly happens at the federal level -- I used it to get a quicker passport for a sudden business trip a while back -- and what's sauce for the Congressional goose is sure to be sauce for the State Senate gander.

If there has been influence used to speed things up, more power to 'em, anything to push things, but using influence to slow things down? Arrest-worthy. Legislators are public servants, and if they want to serve the public by lighting a fire under some bureaucrat, bully for them. But if you're slowing things down because you've got some squealy New Dry in your district scared of a bar opening on Sunday afternoons, well, sorry, but there's clear law on that in The Almighty Liquor Code: it's legal, get out of the way. And if you're slowing things down to benefit another constituent's business, well, remember what your fifth-grade teacher used to say: "I hope you've got enough of that sweet influence for everyone, Miss Smith."
However, there shouldn't be any influence needed. All that's needed is triage. Some bar wants an exemption to open early once on a Sunday in order to show live Tour de France to patrons? Quick decision, and it ought to be yes: where's the harm? Some restaurant asks for a quick registration on a brand for a new beer they'd like to get for a dinner? That's good for a Pennsylvania business and hurts no one: quick decision, and how much work does it take? (Hint: if it takes too much...your system is screwed, because "brand registration" is just an easy source of money for The State anyway.) Those are quick, clear 'em, just hit 'em with your big "HELL YEAH!" stamp and send 'em back; better yet, do it by freakin' e-mail.

Say there are neighborhood complaints about a nuisance bar: top of the pile, get that crap straightened out. Someone wants to transfer a license: have a set time period for a decision, including public hearings if needed, and stick to it.

We have a PLCB CEO now, right? So why aren't performance standards in place? I hear too many stories from licensees about things sent to Harrisburg and not a word back in weeks or months. These people are not drug dealers, they're business people who want to hire Pennsylvanians.

The PLCB should be abolished because it doesn't even work as well as PENNDOT. Let me tell you: I've lived in six other states, and getting licenses, tags, and titles there was -- every one of them -- a chore, a freaking nightmare. At one point, I told my friends that I was probably going to drop dead in a Maryland DMV line, either from a stroke or old age. Getting things done with driver and vehicle registration is one of the best things Pennsylvania government does, and they do it with a beautiful combination of private business and efficient bureaucracy. Why can't the PLCB learn a lesson?

Handle the paperwork, make the decisions, keep records, and get more things online. It's 2008, fergodssake, and you can't even create an online ordering system that works; Amazon's been doing it for over ten years!

If things take so long because there are so many ambiguities in The Almighty Liquor Code, could you tell us? Then maybe we'd push the legislature to fix it. Things can be efficient and still be fair. But when things are this slow, it's not fair to anyone.

Reason #5: For Us, Okay; For You, Forget It

We already discussed how the PLCB has a personality split. One side of the agency wants to sell you booze (gotta make money at the State Store!), the other side wants to control how much you buy and how you drink it. Brilliant idea for a state agency.

But there's another two-sided bedevilment going on at the PLCB. The PLCB always says that they don't make the liquor laws in Pennsylvania, they just enforce them. Yes, that's true...to an extent. Because when they enforce them, they also interpret them. So you'll get interpretations on just what a "case" of beer is, and about how licenses can be apportioned within a county, and ... and what constitutes a State Store, apparently. Because while the PLCB is currently "enforcing" laws that make it illegal to sell beer or liquor at a grocery store, they are also currently considering an "interpretation" that will justify them putting 100 wine vending machines in grocery stores. Really.

Reason #5:

The Liquor Code serves the PLCB, not the citizens of the Commonwealth.

The PLCB is not stupid; not entirely. They see the great opportunities for selling booze in supermarkets; they'd have to be truly blind not t0. The Pennsylvania Liquor code does not allow selling beer in supermarkets (the current fight over supermarket six-pack sales is not really that; it's over whether supermarkets or convenience stores that have restaurant spaces can get a license. I don't see the issue: it's a restaurant that happens to be in a grocery store. Restaurants are eligible to apply for a liquor license. What's the issue?), it limits the retail sale of liquor to State Stores, and limits wine sales to State Stores and Pennsylvania wineries.

But the PLCB wants to get those supermarket wine sales (it doesn't care about beer sales, because it doesn't sell beer). What to do? Someone got a brainstorm: re-define "State Store" to include off-site, remotely-monitored (wait till you hear that explanation), automated self-service wine kiosks. The PLCB wine robots will hold 500 bottles of wine, and the Board wants these automated stands to have measures in place so that no sales will be made to underage or intoxicated people.

How will they do that? Glad you asked. What I understand is that they want you to register to use the kiosks, providing biometric information, like a scan of your fingerprints. Then each kiosk will be remotely monitored -- a person at a remote site will use video and audio links to check you out and make sure you're not drunk before you buy. Because there are a lot of drunks who want to buy bottles of wine in supermarkets, apparently.

Most ludicrous of all, "because the kiosks will be in public settings, 'the PLCB is seeking a solution that prevents the viewing of wines in the wine kiosks by minors.'" (that's from Steve Twedt's article on this in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette). Because we'd hate for a kid to see a bottle of wine. And get scared. Or excited. Or aroused. Or, God forbid, educated.

Privately-run, no beer solution, no liquor possibility, a limited selection of "popular choice" wines, and an unfair advantage -- AGAIN -- to the state monopoly. What's okay for them -- by their interpretation -- is one thing. And once again, we're all going to be so happy that we get this smidgen of service, that we'll forget what a ridiculous system this is.

The PLCB should be abolished because the PA Liquor Code engenders ridiculous and bizarre ideas like this. Wine vending kiosks are actually advanced retail technology; does anyone think an agency that can't even bring itself to recommend a particular wine or vintage will be able to handle it?

Do you want to buy wine in the supermarket? Do you want to buy wine from merchants who carry the wine you want to buy, when you want to buy it, and who will be only too happy to assist you to pick a great wine to meet your needs, your liking, your budget? Well, my friends, if you do, the answer is not automated kiosks teleoperated by some computer geek hundreds of miles away, recording your fingerprints and every single bottle of wine you purchase...

It's privatization, doing away with the archaic State Store System and allowing liquor stores to open, do business, and flourish or fail on their merits. If one of them has the bright idea of an automated wine kiosk, great, let them run it. But to have the State do it? Are you kidding?