Pennsie’s Stupid Liquor laws (for non-resident readers)
For those of you who’ve never visited Pennsylvania, our liquor laws are second only to Utah in terms of stupidity. Even Connecticut, where the stores close at 8:00 PM, has better policy than PA.
In almost every other state, the unit by which beer is sold is the 6-pack. But in PA, it’s by the case, which is only available at the wholesale distributor. if you want to buy a 6-pack, you pay by the bottle. So a sixer of Yuengling, a cheap local brew, costs about $6.00 in New Jersey and about $12.00 (sometimes more) in Pennsylvania. Then you add on a by-the-bottle tax in Philly, which goes to our schools. What this means is Pennsylvanians have less opportunity to try new beers: who wants to risk $25.00-$30.00 on a case of something they’ve never tried? Who wants to pay taproom prices for a sixer of beer they intend to drink at home?
On top of this, most of the distributors aren’t open on Sunday, so if you forgot to go buy a case and want a beer, you have no choice but to pay those by-the-bottle prices.
Our wine and liquor laws are even stupider: that’s sold exclusively in state-run “Wine and Spirit Shoppes”, controlled by the PA Wine and Liquor Control Board. For years those “shoppes” (yes, they spell it that way, although there seems to be some halting transition to that crazy 21st century word “store”) were run like a pharmacy, a vestige of the laws following Prohibition’s repeal: a man behind a counter would take your order, go in the back of the store, and obtain your bottle. The practice was clearly meant to stigmatize alcohol consumption. Until last summer, when they opened a new one, that was how the shoppe in my neighborhood ran: turns out it was one of the oldest liquor stores in the city.
The selection is exactly what you’d expect from a bunch of bureaucrats whose bios betray no particular experience in the food and beverage industry: ghastly and highly limited. The occasionally updated Chairman’s Selection is unintentionally hilarious and typically overpriced. I’d just as soon get a recommendation from a drunk on a park bench.
Even worse, the PA LCB is hell on bars and restaurants, and by extension the customers those establishments serve. In most states, restaurants can buy liquor and wine wholesale from a distributor. In PA, restaurants have to pay the same prices as retail customers: thus the markup is higher.
Compared to New Jersey and Delaware, where the market dictates what can and can’t be sold, and for how much money, Pennsylvania is stuck in the stone age. And that’s why the PA state police stake out liquor stores just across the state line, in an effort to bust Pennsylvanians looking for more choices and lower prices.
Pennsylvania is a truly ridiculous place to live.
January 14th, 2010 at 9:48 am
When I moved to Pa. in 1983, I knew something was screwy when I realized that the Pa. liquor laws made Virginia’s look sane. Especially the whole “beverage distributor” thing, which is benighted beyond words.
Down there, you can buy beer and wine anywhere (supermarkets, convenience stores, whatever), but have to buy spirits at a state store (called ABC stores for “alcoholic beverage control” board that runs them–a holdover from the alliance between the Baptists and the bootleggers).
The selection in the Va. ABC stores is reasonable; the prices are a little high compared to say, Washington, D. C., or Delaware.
When I was growing up, the clerks in the Va. ABC stores wore uniforms and you had to order across the counter, but now the staff wears street clothes and you can browse the shelves. The stores are commonly cleaner and neater than most private liquor stores I’ve seen.
I’d rather see private liquor stores, but it’s not bad as state systems go.