Open Letter to the PLCB
Dear Mr. Stapleton, Mr. goldsmith, and Mr. Marcus:
As a taxpaying citizen of Pennsylvania, I demand that you rein in the PLCB and stop the destructive and embarrassing raids you are conducting in Philadelphia. As has become clear, the beverages confiscated for not being properly registered actually ARE registered, but the PLCB recorded the names improperly: two examples are Duvel and Monk’s Sour Ale. I am sure there are MANY more.
It’s been clear for some time that the PLCB is an outdated anachronism, and the latest raids further prove the case: obviously, the PLCB is unaware of the practice of cellaring certain beers in the same manner as wine, nor is the PLCB aware of what’s on its list of registered and unregistered beers. The economy in the state is already bad enough without the PLCB sending armed state police into establishments run by law-abiding business owners. Furthermore, in a time of economic crisis for the state, the PLCB is wasting taxpayers money and scant resources. Philadelphia’s murder rate, for example, is out of control: why are you wasting valuable man hours chasing down beer labels? I remind you that Prohibition ended 76 years ago.
It is not lost on me, or on anyone else paying attention to this gross abuse of authority, that none of you have any experience selling, marketing, or making wine, liquor, or beer:
Patrick J. Stapleton III of Malvern, Pa., was appointed to the Pennsylvania Liquor Control Board by Governor Tom Ridge on June 17, 1997… Stapleton, a native of Indiana, Pa., and a graduate of the University of Notre Dame and the Tulane University School of Law, is an attorney practicing with the Philadelphia/Pittsburgh-based law firm of Weber, Gallagher, Simpson, Stapleton, Fires and Newby, where he specializes in commercial litigation, bankruptcy, medical malpractice and general casualty litigation.
Thomas F. Goldsmith of Easton, Pennsylvania, was appointed to the Pennsylvania Liquor Control Board by Governor Edward G. Rendell, and unanimously confirmed by the Senate on April 23, 2003. He was reconfirmed for a second four-year term on Nov. 14, 2007… Goldsmith is a proven leader with a lengthy career in public service, having spent 20-years on Easton City Council and several years as an administrative and financial consultant to a number of communities in the Easton area before being elected Easton’s mayor.
Robert S. Marcus, a resident of Indiana, Pa., was nominated to the Pennsylvania Liquor Control Board by Gov. Edward G. Rendell on June 1, 2007, and unanimously confirmed by the state Senate on Nov. 14, 2007. Marcus, an attorney, is a founding partner in the Indiana firm of Marcus & Mack, P.C., concentrating in personal injury law. He is also chairman of Pittsburgh-based Apangea Learning, an online math tutoring system used in school districts around the country.
It is bad enough that your ignorance of the product you’re charged with selling and controlling drives otherwise law-abiding Pennsylvanians to Delaware and New Jersey to find wines unavailable in our state or to buy a six-pack at a reasonable price (at least one liquor store in NJ has a photo of an identified PLCB member buying his beverages at their store, with a humorous caption attached). But going after law-abiding businessmen on some kind of witch hunt better suited for the Roaring Twenties than the 21st century is wrong on all counts.
Stop the raids, suspend confiscations of so-called “unregistered beer”, and rewrite the liquor code. You are wasting taxpayer dollars, state police time, needlessly punishing small business owners in a time of economic collapse, and making the PLCB even more of a laughingstock.
sincerely,
brendan skwire
