Conti's Gone, But Still Lyi -- Getting His Numbers Wrong

I'm 95% opposed to privatization!

We've seen how Joe Da Ex-CEO Conti has consistently misrepresented the facts. He said that privatization would end tax revenues; we all know they wouldn't. He said that border bleed was minimal, less than 2% of total sales; the PLCB's own report on border bleed showed it was greater. He said that the PLCB's own review committee approved the wine kiosk program; the PLCB's press secretary had to admit (the same day) that they had, in fact, advised rejecting the program. He fulminated against privatization as PLCB CEO, exclaiming what a bad idea it was; yet as a Pennsylvania legislator he co-sponsored a bill to privatize the state liquor stores...and now denies it.

So when I saw this 2012 interview quoted today in the Shanken News Daily e-letter, I suspected something might be...Contified about it. Here's what Conti said last January about privatization:

In polls, 50%-60% of Pennsylvanians favor deregulation. Back in the ’80s and ’90s, there was much more public support—around 95%—for deregulation. So there’s not the enthusiasm we saw 20 or 30 years ago. That’s thanks to the PLCB’s various initiatives over the years.

As someone just emailed me, I should have been suspicious when I saw "95%". Politicians didn't get numbers like that in Soviet Russia. Sure enough...Joe's lying again. Oh, hell, okay, he's misremembering, whatever you want to call it. Because here's one poll result (an exit poll of 3,223 primary voters) I found from 1986, in an article in the Philadelphia Inquirer, and it doesn't even come close to 95%:

By slim margins, voters who answered exit polls in Tuesday's primary election said they favored replacing the state-run system of liquor stores with privately operated stores, but they were opposed to legalizing casino gambling in Pennsylvania.
...
The Teichner poll showed that 54 percent of voters shared Scranton's viewpoint and 46 percent wanted to preserve State Stores. That split was reflected along party lines, with most Democrats favoring the status quo and most Republicans supporting change.

Just to cover both decades...here's another one that's quite a bit shy of "95%", from a 1995 Inquirer article:

According to surveys of more than 1,700 people by Mansfield University, two out of three Pennsylvanians - and even more Philadelphians - would rather switch to a free-market liquor system.

Damn, Joe! You did it again! Nice to know the guy's consistent, but holy crap, lying that boldly in a nationally-published interview? I mean, 95% in favor, and the Legislature voted it down? Were we supposed to believe that? So really, support for privatization has been pretty damned consistent for the last 30 years -- and the Legislature has done nothing about it.

By the way..."thanks to the PLCB's various initiatives over the years" takes on a whole new meaning in this light, right? Because the numbers in favor of privatization are higher now, hey, Joe? Rockin' that wine kiosk thing, baby! I'm keeping it real, because you know Joe won't...even as the Ex-CEO. Man, he's gonna kick it when he's back to handle the PLCB emergency!

Why do I bother posting this? Because the anti-privatization groups have no compunction about telling whoppers like this...and no one ever questions them. Don't buy the bullshit!

Is This A Look At What Our Privatization Will Look Like?

Governor Corbett has unveiled his plan for privatization, and it's radical in scope, going well beyond last year's mangled piece of legislative committee crap. The Commonwealth Foundation has a good precis of it here, and the Tribune-Review has a better one here, but they don't get all the gimpy little details that are one of my major problems with the Corbett plan.

Actually, before we get to the little things...let's get to the big one: the police-enforced monopoly is still there. For no apparent reason other than to screw with us, there's nothing in here about allowing Pennsylvanians to pick up a bottle of wine on their way home from Baltimore, or New York, or work, for the large number who commute across the Delaware. That's right. Big Daddy in Harrisburg is still going to tell you where you can buy your booze: only in Pennsylvania. Sorry, gotta be blunt: that's un-American bullshit. Laws that tell me I'm not allowed to buy a bottle of gin and bring it home? Don't insult us: FIX THIS!

Now, those little details... The Corbett Plan gets rid of the Case Law, but does it by breaking it up into a bunch of ridiculous NEW limits that are going to have you carrying a card to remind you what you can buy where. The Inquirer explained it like this last week.

Under the plan, retail beer distributors, who now can only sell by the case or keg, could apply for a license to sell the alcohol trifecta: beer, wine, and liquor. Supermarkets could sell a customer up to two six-packs of beer, and up to six bottles of wine. Convenience stores and drugstores? A six-pack to go, no wine. Restaurants and taverns, which can now sell a customer no more than two six-packs of beer, could sell up to six bottles of wine. Big-box stores [Wal-Mart? Target? Home Depot?] would be allowed to sell beer by the case and up to six bottles of wine. In a nod to beer distributors, Corbett's plan would let them apply for "enhanced" licenses, allowing them - for the first time since Prohibition - to sell by the six-pack.

Get all that? Doesn't it just make you want to ask WHY?! Governor, there is no good reason to put limits like this on retail. Just have a beer retail license, and a wine retail license, and allow stores to buy one, the other, or both. Done. And if I want to pay their prices, I go and buy as much or as little as I want. Don't make us do that foolish "buy two, step out, step back, buy two more" dance anymore, it's just ridiculous.

Worst of all, you're compromising with a group that doesn't exist. The social conservatives and MADD don't want supermarkets and convenience stores to sell any wine or beer, so limiting it to half a case and six bottles won't make them any more likely to support this -- or, more aptly, acquiesce to it -- they will hate the whole idea, and still vote no. And if you succeed without them, we'll be stuck with a compromise that did nothing. Drop it.

Jon Geeting of Keystone Politics is passionately progressive and fully supports privatization; we've discussed it and come to large amounts of agreement. He's written some great stuff here and here, and here, where he argues that Corbett's plan is not radical enough, that it needs LESS regulation to open up MORE competition. (That's my kind of Progressive!) He's also in on a gallonage tax to replace the price-based Johnstown Flood Tax, which is another good idea: it makes cheap booze (also known as "wino fuel") more expensive, which would actually do something in the direction of, you know...control.

But I do like some things. Quite a bit, actually. Like this:  

• The State Stores go away, and the State is no longer the wholesaler! Which means we start to have a LOT more input on what's available for sale.  
• Taxes don't change. So unlike Washington's greed-driven failure, our prices don't automatically go up (which would be blamed on privatization). 
• Beer and wine sold in grocery stores. Look, I love my beer distributor. Actually, quite a few of them. Great guys, and they've supplied us with great beer. But...it's a LOT easier to buy beer and wine in the grocery store. Easy = good.
• Beer distributors can become all-alcohol stores. And I hope they do. Because I LOVE all-alc stores like Total Wine, and Canal's, and Bev-Mo, and Binny's. Huge selection, smart staff, great extras, full-on booze coolness. I like small specialty places like Park Avenue and Federal and Moore Bros., too: excellent service, the exclusive bottlings only they get. It will take an investment in space and stock and smarts...but it will be worth it. 
• The number of licenses to sell off-premise spirits doubles. It could be a lot better, but double is pretty good. I'd like to see it double again, but for now...it's one hell of an improvement. 
• Annual license fees. Because having the State issue the license and someone else make the money drives me crazy. It still costs the licensee, but the State gets it. 

There is room for improvement -- get rid of that police-enforced monopoly! -- but this is the best plan I've seen in my lifetime. Let's go for it.

Joe Conti's Greatest Hits

Joe Da CEO - 12/13/06 -- 2/2/13

Joe Conti's gone, and we're somewhat sorry to see him go. He was, as the alliteration-happy Commonwealth Foundation might put it, The Autocrat of Arrogance, King of The Kiosks, notorious Nabob of Nepotism, and the Duke of (Tone) Deafness. He will be back as a consultant, of course -- he is also the Prince of the Public Trough -- so we have hope that he'll still deliver us a final Endowment of Embarrassment!

In the meantime, here are our most fond memories of Joe Da CEO, and what he did to further the cause of privatization of the State Store System, along with a range of 1-20 points for each incident's CONTI score (that's Corruption, Oblivious-to-Consequences, Nepotism, Thick-Wittedness, and Insider-itis). Plenty of links to the blogposts that describe them too, and I have to say, they're some of my favorites. It was so much fun to rant about Joe Da CEO.

Joe's Job. Conti's CEO position was created out of whole cloth by Governor Ed Rendell, and apparently filled without advertising, without any other candidates being interviewed, and without any real clue on why it was needed. Here's the story. That might explain why Conti seemed to do nothing for the first two years he was in the position (though we were told he spent that time..."planning").
Score: 4. More about Joe, than it is Joe...but the shape of things to come.

Dr. Rendellstein's Monster. This was a minor incident, but one of my favorites, because it illustrated just how overly-independent the PLCB is. Rendell hears about the original TableLeaf "rebranding" idea, and has Conti in to talk about it. "The governor expressed his opinion that the PLCB stores as currently named were recognizable and had a brand value of their own and he strongly discouraged PLCB from attempting to change the names of the stores... The governor was vocal in making his opinion known." Conti recalled the meeting differently. "[Conti] described the meeting with Mr. Rendell as "more a directional discussion" covering a wide range of topics. "The governor was delighted with everything he saw," said Mr. Conti." Just amazing.
Score: 8. A small gem of Continess.

Playing Restaurant Favorites. On Conti's watch: the PLCB opened a mini-winestore inside Garces Trading Company, Jose Garces deli/grocery. Really kind of cool...and really kind of unfair to all the other BYOs in Philly who would love to have a little winestore in-house, but never got asked (except when Conti allegedly offered one to Stephen Starr...see below). No more have opened, and Garces has distanced himself from the concept.
Score: 9. Tone-deaf, but Conti was not too publicly vocal about it. 

TableLeaf. He spent a lot of money on it for no understandable reason: rebranding a legal, police-enforced monopoly? When that got too ugly, he changed his mind and taped it on the front of a PLCB-created "house" wine brand. And then, when people got pissed off that the house brand was deliberately undercutting private winemakers...he lied about it.
Score: 10. Classic Conti characteristics, but a fairly small affair; an extra point for some bold lying. 

Fighting Privatization. Despite noting several times that it wasn't his job to fight privatization -- that was all up to the Legislature! -- Conti spent a lot of public time doing just that. One of the best was during this Legislative hearing, where he did what he does so well. He lied (about how much money privatization would "lose" the State, and about the results of the PLCB's internal review of the wine kiosks), he blustered, he threatened, and he obfuscated...all of it while fighting the idea of privatization, which he said he wasn't there to do.
Score: 11. No corruption, just doing his job. Wait...he said it wasn't his job. It's confusing.  

How many wine kiosks did you want?

The Death of the Wine Kiosks. Almost as much fun as the spectacle of the Wine Kiosks themselves was Conti's complete loss of reality-grip when the The Invincible Wine Robot Army (see below) was finally defeated at the Battle of Wegmans. Faced with total annihilation of his cherished idea, and the utter commercial failure of the misbegotten wine automata, what was Conti's reaction? "It certainly wasn't a failure." "I still think there is merit to the program." "It didn't end up successful, but we learned a lot and we will end up better for it."
Score: 13. Would have been higher, but no nepotism or (detectable) corruption. Just arrogance and stupidity. 

The Courtesy Contract. If you've forgotten...the PLCB let a contract (on a low-ball bid) for "Improving basic customer service skills" to a company run by the husband of a PLCB regional manager. Conti's watch, and he loved it: "This is a vast adventure, and it's one we have to take," he said And the training was ridiculous, probably unnecessary (there was a customer complaint once every 288,000 transactions...), and ineffective: customer complaints actually went up after the training. And Conti decided to continue it. The Auditor General said: "Although this contract was awarded according to the letter of the law, there are several incidents that occurred that raise serious concerns and put the PLCB's procurement procedures in question." Conti's reaction? Vindication. Classic.
Score: 14. No obvious personal corruption. And the nepotism was someone else's... 

The Wine Kiosks (AKA The Invincible Wine Robot Army). The most amazing idea that could never work. Here's a video of just how ridiculous they were in case you'd forgotten:



Conti oversaw this Carnival of FAIL from the initial flawed idea, through the single-bidder contract (to the completely inexperienced company that was heavy with contributors to Gov. Rendell's campaign), through overriding the advice of a PLCB internal review to reject the idea (which he then lied about to a Legislative hearing) to the bloated execution (which hid costs) and the eventual disaster that was the implementation. You can see most of that here.
Score: 18. Close to perfect, but no obvious nepotism.

Contigate. According to the state Inspector General, Conti accepted Phillies and Union tickets from PLCB vendors and "lobbied" vendors and restaurateur Stephen Starr for a job for his daughter; Conti may also have hinted in the same conversation with Starr that maybe Starr could get one of the sweet in-store PLCB "winebox" pop-up stores like Jose Garces got (and NO ONE ELSE seems to be able to get). And...he was dumb enough (or arrogant enough; your pick) to use his State-issued Blackberry to do the business.  Score: 20. Doesn't get much more Conti than this.


Ah, Joe, Joe...it was great to have you around. It kept the fight interesting, and kept it fair, too. I mean, it was just 2/3 of the citizens of the Commonwealth vs. the UFCW and the Legislature! But you and your great ideas like the wine kiosks kept us going!

Too bad the PLCB's dumb enough to hire you back at $80 an hour as a consultant. Yeah, really, they are...on an official "emergency" basis. That's a move so dumb you'd almost think it was Joe's... Score: 22.

The New Proposal

Governor Corbett announced his plan for privatization on Wednesday. I want to see more details, but it goes a lot further than Turzai's flawed plan from last year. The 'unlimited' licenses for beer and wine sales alone are a huge boon for consumers, and SHOULD shut up the "all the licenses will go to big box stores, waaaahh!!!" crowd...though it won't, because they can't wait to cloud the issue.

Get the details. Get organized. Let the Governor know you support privatization, and let your legislators know, too. Tell them this is an important issue for you. Because I guarantee you, every State Store employee (and their families) is calling their representative every week to let them know it's an important issue for them, and filling them full of crap statements about jobs, and "profits," and safety, and morality, and all that jazz...all of which doesn't hold up to examination.

I'll lay it out -- I'm back on the job, now that the game is afoot -- and yeah, we'll talk about The Fall Of Conti, too, just for fun, since he's become a non-issue. Sorry to see him go, he was a real poster child for privatization.

Best shot we've had in decades. Make it happen. If you can, join our Facebook page. Thanks!

The Beer Law Forum at Yards last week

As I warned you, we had another Beer Laws Forums at Yards Brewery in Philly last Thursday, set up by Philly Beer Scene. Senator Chuck McIlhinney was there, as were Bill Covaleski, of Victory Brewing Co., representing the Brewers of Pennsylvania, and Mike Gretz Sr. of Gretz Beer Distributors, representing things from the wholesalers point of view. I was on the panel representing the drinkers, and Tom Kehoe of Yards moderated. 

This was quite timely. Senator McIlhinney is going to be the new chairman of the Senate Law & Justice Committee (which handles liquor control), and to have him this engaged was great. He's obviously actively seeking input on this. We went right to him out of the box, asking why we had no sixpack sales in beer distributors. He started going off about grocery stores and the three tier system, and I interrupted him to explain that we were talking about the case law: why can't beer distributors sell beer by the sixpack? It would seem to be pretty simple.
 
But that set the tone for the whole night, and a frustration that has become familiar to those of us who want to rewrite The Almighty Liquor Code. It's because, he said, there are 22,000 licensees (tavern and deli licenses and such) in the state who don't want to lose their sixpack business, and they all vote. It quickly became apparent from audience comments that their employees vote too. But what about us, I responded: there are millions of us, and we vote. How can we make that important? It was a question we tried to get answered all night; we got something toward the end.

That led into a fairly simple question by Tom Peters at Monk's Cafe: if a beer is not registered in the state, and they want to get it in for a trial run, or a special event, is there some way to get it in without giving all the distribution rights to a wholesaler? Mike Gretz took that one and seemed to be saying that you could already do this under current state law (but several people in the room who are quite conversant with The Almighty Liquor Code told me that this was simply not so; I'm not sure). 

(Gretz took the opportunity -- as he did at least one other time -- to speak about the family businesses wholesalers represented (and the jobs), and the almost sacred trust of controlling alcohol abuse. I didn't agree with some of it -- it's just a defense of the three-tier system that wholesalers have been using successfully for years -- but I'm not insensitive to it, either. It's just that I can't help noticing that other states have sixpack sales AND sales in grocery stores, and there are no roving gangs of boozed-up semi-zombies there. Food for thought.)

Tom Peters would be quite vocal in support of the tavern owners' interests (understandably so) through the night. What are the tavern owners' interests? They have an asset -- their license -- that is quite valuable, worth tens of thousands (or even hundreds of thousands) of dollars, and they don't want to see anything happen that will decrease the value of that license. Beer distributors selling sixpacks will cut into their sixpack business. Well...maybe. But the grocery stores that bought bar licenses to sell sixpacks are cutting into it now, and the fact is that for most licensees, sixpack sales are a tiny part of their income. Even those who have used their license to run sixpack stores would probably be able to compete, though with lower markup and more effort. But if they're going to give that right up, they want something in return, and that...is where politics and the art of the possible will come into play. 

And that is why we have no sixpack law, because the tavern owners haven't been happy with any deal they've been offered. I get that it's their family business, their livelihood, but...we vote too. Maybe, with an activist leader coming to the committee, it's time to cut that deal.

Speaking of cutting deals, we did get into privatization. The senator is backing a plan to sell wine and spirits by the bottle for takeout at bars. The licensee would pay a $10,000 annual fee for that right (this would obviously lead to the equivalent of specialty bottleshops like The Foodery, but for wine or spirits, or both). Tom was skeptical; many places don't have the room for the inventory that would require. Well, then don't get the license, or figure something else out: if there's money to be made, people will figure out a way to make it. 

That's 22,000 possible additional liquor stores, of course, and that sounds interesting, until you understand that the Senator's plan still has the PLCB as wholesaler. So there's your selection, shot in the arse. Although who knows, if they don't have to figure out how to sell it, maybe they'll actually get some good stuff in? Thing is, we don't know, and that's when I blew my top and started shouting. I thought this was an idiotic plan -- I still do -- and that it's not really what we want, which is privatization. I calmed down, embarrassed, but still angry.

Then the Senator pointed out that while he would like to replace the state stores with private outlets (that's a paraphrase, I didn't get the exact quote, but it's very encouraging from a state senator running Liquor Control), we had to realize what he had to work with. "40% of the townships in Pennsylvania are dry," he said. Let me repeat that: Senator McIlhinney said, "40% of the townships in Pennsylvania are dry."*

That may seem crazy in 2012, but consider. NONE of the townships in the five counties in southeast PA are dry, so we're not the best judges down here. I do know of dry townships where I grew up in Lancaster County; they're still out there, and they don't go wet. As the senator said, increasing the number of licenses sounds great to you here, but when he goes out and to try to convince a senator from Adams County (west of York) on this, he doesn't get a lot of support from the area. It's pretty rural, pretty conservative. 

I think that was when we got a great comment from the audience: If alcohol is so important and dangerous that you can't privatize it, why are we privatizing schools? The wholesalers and tavern owners talk about family businesses, my parents are educators, this is my family business, and you're privatizing the education of your children. If you can do that, why not wine sales? The Senator denied that schools were being privatized -- maybe not up where he is, but in Philly they were -- and the whole thing got a bit disjointed, but it was an excellent point. It also underscores that most of the arguments against privatization are about union jobs and tax revenue, not health and safety.

We decided it was time to wrap things up, so we asked the Senator: what do we do to get through to our legislature that we want this to happen? Show up at things like this, he said: done. Write to your legislators: do it. What about other legislators? He kind of chuckled: you don't vote for them, so they won't really be impressed. Maybe, but...it can't hurt (I wrote the governor, too, BTW).

The thing is...to get their attention, you have to write often, and there has to be a LOT of you. We are going to have to organize, and as this is all going to start up again in February, and we don't even have buy-in on what it is we want...that's daunting. So by the end of the week: I'll have a punchlist of what it is we want. We'll go from there.

Remember: Privatization IS Modernization; an End to The Case Law.





Note that this 2009 newspaper piece gives a number of 28% of the townships and municipalities as dry, and 12% of state's population lives in them. Even though that's less than 40%, it's still a lot.

The Election's Over, It's Time To Get Back To Work

The PLCB clerks have a "Save the PLCB" page on Facebook -- can't blame them, but they're standing in the way of progress toward modernity -- and this was just posted early this morning:

"Back to the subject the time to promote modernization is today! New reps need our input! Modernization is the way we move forward! Write, call, visit your Reps new and old. Strike while the iron is hot!"

We need to meet this. PLEASE reach out to your legislators (almost all of them were re-elected, so don't delay: HIT IT NOW) today and congratulate them, and let them know that you're counting on them to come up with and support a solid plan for privatization, NOT "modernization."  

Privatization IS modernization: that needs to be our slogan. The thing is...the PLCB's "modernization" plans are untested, their execution on modernization in the past has been problematic at best (the wine kiosks are only the most visible failure), and really...why would you go to an agency that has so many issues with customer service and central command-itis for ideas on how to "modernize"? 

Privatization IS modernization. There's nothing untested about private retail, it's not only how most other states (and countries) sell booze, it's how Pennsylvania supplies food, clothing, books, housewares, fuel, electronics...everything else people buy. Total Wine knows how to sell booze, Joe Canal's knows how to sell booze, almost every drugstore in Maryland knows how to sell it: it's not rocket science, and it's definitely NOT so dangerous that the state has to do it. 

It's also not really about revenue: the taxes will continue to come in, and all the Legislature will have to come up with is less than $100 million out of a $27 billion annual budget. I think there are some cuts in the Harrisburg establishment that could neatly cover that...and it's well worth it to stop treating Pennsylvanians like children. Besides, border bleed will go down significantly and we'll actually get MORE tax revenue. 

Privatization makes more sense than "modernizing" a system that most Pennsylvanians would really rather do without. Solve it all, simply, and you'll actually create jobs. Sure, the jobs of the PLCB will be largely lost, but they'll be replaced by jobs in the private liquor stores. 

Write your legislators. Today. Tell them you want privatization, not modernization.   

Is Privatization Dead? Not at all!

The Legislative session is effectively over, and the privatization bill has died with it. No one's doing anything till after the election, at which point privatization would have to be re-introduced. Mike Turzai, the vocal champion of privatization in the State House, damaged himself badly with a gaffe about voter ID, and by failing to bring privatization to a vote. Governor Corbett has said recently that privatization is still a top priority, and that he will present a proposal next year, but the Legislature may change hands, and his approval ratings are low.

We're screwed, it appears.

Oh, shut up. That's just what the PLCB partisans want you to believe! The truth is that the PLCB's incompetence is the gift that keeps on giving. As long as they keep screwing up, privatization is going to be in the Legislature's face, and the Internet makes it even easier to keep up the pressure.

Don't believe me? Take a look at this recent Philadelphia Inquirer poll. "The poll found that 55 percent of respondents supported privatization, 28 percent opposed it, and 17 percent either did not know or did not answer." That's almost 2 to 1 in favor among those who have an opinion. It gets better: "61 percent of respondents in the bipartisan survey said they supported allowing grocery stores to sell beer and wine." Even the clueless Legislature can't ignore numbers like that forever (except they will, because the unions that represent the State Store workers continue to get right in their faces and remind them that they vote and that they give lots of juicy campaign donations).

The PLCB stepped in it again during Sandy last week, when they shut down the entire State Store System for two days. Now, some of the stores were without power, and some were in areas where it was dangerous to drive...but the PLCB drove home the problem with a stupid state-wide monopoly by shutting down every single store, regardless of local conditions. Even some of the employees admitted it was a stupid thing to do.

Want more? How about even more bad press for the goofballs who run the PLCB and the State Store System? That's right, Joe Da CEO was in the news again, and it wasn't because he's a great humanitarian. It's about that dopey Tableleaf in-house wine brand they shoved down the throats of Pennsylvanians. The Legislature wanted to know how and why this lowball wine brand came to be on the State Store System Shelves in (unfair) competition with other brands, and Conti told them that vendors approached the PLCB with wine samples. But that's not the story PLCB marketing director Jim Short tells: he says he went to the wine companies looking for cheap wine to put under the Tableleaf label. Hmmm...a falling out between two of the people at the PLCB under investigation for corruption with vendors? 

It gets worse, according to a story on the TribLive website:

Conti told the House committee that the Wine and Spirits Advisory Council, a group of consumers and liquor license holders empaneled by the LCB, tasted samples of wine submitted for consideration by a number of vendors competing for the TableLeaf brand, transcripts show. But those council members deny being involved.

...

In later interviews with the Trib, Conti changed his story again, stating that an LCB wine educator and outside sommelier tasted samples submitted by vendors.

But Judy Carroll, a wine educator for the central region of the state, said educators don’t play a role in choosing products. “I do classes and seminars with the people who work in the (state) stores,” Carroll said.She said her six counterparts elsewhere in the state all do the same thing: conduct classes to educate state store workers.

And Melissa Monosoff, the sommelier under contract with the LCB from December 2007 through November 2011, said she was not involved in the development or selection of TableLeaf wines “in the slightest” and had “no idea who was.”

Conti, once again, has apparently misspoken. That's the arrogance of the PLCB for you.

Want more? How about this: The LCB, the Board itself, is making a dumb show of its obligation to meet publicly. Check this out, again from the TribLive website:

A Tribune-Review analysis of nearly three years of LCB meeting records, along with attendance at meetings, shows many of the board’s twice-monthly meetings lasted just 15 to 20 minutes with little or no public discussion before votes. Critics speculate the lack of discussion means the bulk of the agency’s decision-making occurs out of public view.

“It appears that ... the staff and the board members have developed a way of doing business that is difficult, if not impossible, for an average citizen to follow,” said Senate Majority Leader Dominic Pileggi, R-Delaware County, an advocate for increased government openness.

“Certainly, these issues of how the board operates will be given a fresh look as we work through the legislation for changing the way citizens are able to buy alcohol,” Pileggi said.

Unfortunately, what Pileggi means here is that the Legislature is still considering the ill-advised "Modernization" program that the PLCB is advising! Does this make sense? Here's an agency that is crippled by incompetency, riddled with corruption, consumed with its own arrogance...and you think it's a good idea to let them tell you what's needed to fix their problems?! 

We have a big job ahead of us in 2013. We need to remind Governor Corbett of his promises. We need to remind the Legislature and Senator Pileggi that we want privatization, not some crappy "modernization." We need to get a good, fair bill that gives us privatization that makes sense, not the cock-eyed greedfest that got passed in Washington (that people still seem to prefer to the old state store system). And we need to get serious about it. 

Get started now. If you're in the Philadelphia area, please come out this Thursday to Yards brewing for our second beer laws forum: if you WANT it to cover privatization, I'm willing to expand the conversation. We had 100 people at the last one, I'd love to have an overflow crowd. We're going to be talking about how to take action. It's time to get rolling.