Only corrupt politician hacks that slither through the State House in Harrisburg could possibly oppose the privitazation of the State monopoly on liquor sales in Pennsylvania. Governor Corbett is again taking on the government union drones that are ruining the finances of the state. Fast Eddie Rendell did nothing about this outrage in his 8 years as governor, because he and his Democratic cronies are bought and sold by the unions. Pennsylvanians are stuck with a Prohibition era system of State owned and operated liquor stores. You cannot buy alcohol anywhere but State stores and Beer distributors. It’s a monopoly that drives prices sky high, reduces selection, increases the inconvenience for every person in PA, and pays for the gold plated pensions of 3,500 retail union government drones. This antiquated, inefficient, expensive joke of a system is kept in place by corrupt politicians to benefit 3,500 drones at the expense of the 12.7 million Pennsylvanians who are plagued by high prices and limited selection.
Corbett’s plan would end the monopoly, allow alcohol to be sold at grocery stores, Costco, and anyone willing to pay for a new license. Prices would plummet, as free market competition would work its magic. The selection and convenience for customers would increase dramatically. And it would raise $1 billion of revenue for the schools. And here is why I despise government unions. The school systems across the state are being destroyed by the pension payouts to the union teacher gold plated funds put into place and not funded by prior administrations. These same government union workers will fight Corbett’s plan to privatize the State stores, even though the money raised will go towards the school budgets. Theses unions don’t care about students or taxpayers. They only care about getting as much out of the taxpayer as they can and funneling money to politicians who protect their interests.
Polls show there is overwhelming support for privatizing the state stores. So what will the politicians do? They will ignore the will of the people and vote against Corbett’s plan. Remember TARP? Over 90% of Americans were against it. What did the politicians do?
Reactions mixed to liquor store privatization plan
By Stacy Wescoe
There was mixed reaction today to Gov. Tom Corbett’s announcement that he would pursue the privatization of the state’s liquor stores.
“The governor presented a compelling, comprehensive plan today, as have other lawmakers who support sweeping changes to the manner in which alcohol is sold and distributed in the commonwealth,” Pennsylvania Chamber President Gene Barr said. “It is long past time for the state to get out of the liquor business; it is not a core function of state government. We believe a responsible private system would better improve the buying experience for customers by promoting competitive pricing and increased convenience, while continuing to generate revenue for the commonwealth.”
The proposal would provide opportunities for numerous outlets – from “big box” stores to convenience stores – to sell alcohol, while giving new options to restaurants, hotels and taverns, said Barr.
He said Pennsylvania Chamber members support privatization efforts, and stressed that Pennsylvania residents also overwhelmingly support changes to the current system beyond privatization of liquor sales.
The proposal also received backing from the Citizen’s Alliance of Pennsylvania.
“Our ‘state store’ system is a relic of the Prohibition. The current system is wasteful, inefficient, and inconvenient. Its time (if it ever had one) is long gone,” said Alliance Executive Director Leo Knepper.
Meanwhile another group, the Keystone Research Center encouraged Gov. Corbett to abandon the proposal to dramatically increase the number of retail outlets for beer, wine and spirits in the state.
“The proposal could cost the commonwealth revenue that won’t be invested in education, health services and a stronger economy,” said Stephen Herzenberg, Ph.D., an economist and executive director of KRC. “It will also radically increase alcohol accessibility and the resulting social costs.”
The union representing Pennsylvania liquor store workers, the United Food and Commercial Workers, opposes the plan as well, saying it would eliminate the jobs of 3,500 members of UFCW Local 1776 and Local 23. It called for the modernization of the stores versus privatization.
sangell says:
Virginia had these horrible ABC stores. You could buy the same bottle over in DC for 10% less but what was worse if you went to the ABC store you could only buy liquor. If you needed ginger ale or coca-cola or any other supplies for your drunken evening you had to go to another store for that.
The Governor there was trying to get rid of this archaic state monopoly but I don’t know if he ever did.
Probably not. Government agencies are like cancer cells, very difficult to kill.
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1st February 2013 at 10:42 am
Administrator says:
Pennsylvanians drive to Delaware to buy alcohol. PA sends police to check license plates at Delaware liquor stores and they follow PA residents into the state and pull them over.
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1st February 2013 at 11:15 am
Gubmint cheese says:
If PA ever privitizes the liquor business in the state, I think the entire economy of Cecil county Md would collapse.
Many PA residents make their pilgimage there for better pricing, lower taxes and better selection.
I have never seen so many liquor stores concentrated in one area.
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1st February 2013 at 11:18 am
Dorkus Maximus says:
On a vacation to Mexico a couple years ago I was impressed that I could buy booze and cuban cigars at a good price pretty much anywhere and partake of them pretty much where ever I pleased. Tis a wonderful place.
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1st February 2013 at 11:56 am
Willadean says:
I watched and experienced the privatization of liquor sales in Washington state. I knew that if the state stopped selling liquor they would insist on still collecting their tax revenue which was their “profit”. By privatizing the retailers placed their mark up in addition to the taxes on liquor. Prices went up 15 to 20 percent after privatization. The same will happen in Pennsylvania.
Hot debate. What do you think?
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1st February 2013 at 12:00 pm
Administrator says:
Not a fucking chance. Prices will drop. Competition will drive prices down. A monopoly will never have lower prices. You must be a government drone union employee.
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1st February 2013 at 12:08 pm
JIMSKI says:
When Ohio opened up liquer licensing they kept the state stores in operation. How did they do this?
State minimum pricing.
So the profit on the booze that used to go to an overpaid union drone making 20 bucks an hour now goes to the owner of Dougs drive through and he employs slack jawed drones for 8.50 an hour.
The game is rigged.
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1st February 2013 at 12:39 pm
BUCKHED says:
Hmmmm…my work at home kit would do nicely in Pa.
For $325.00 you get two 55 gallon barrels,40 feet of copper tubing,300Lbs of Corn,450Lbs of sugar,50 Mason jars and software to print labels for the Mason jars .
My suggestion is to label your jars ” The Recipe ” to divert inquiry as to the nature of the liquid .
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1st February 2013 at 12:48 pm
AWD says:
Socialism in action. You aren’t free to buy booze, you are told how, when, and how much it will cost by the government. You need to get your drinking buddies together and protest. 100,000 drunks picketing at the state house will surely have some result.
Public employee unions should be outlawed.
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1st February 2013 at 12:53 pm
NoEffingWay says:
Will of the people? What a joke. 90% of Americans may have been against it, but when the policitians voted for it what did the American Fucktards do? They re-elected them in overwhelming numbers. Apparently, Americans love getting screwed over. Fuck em.
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1st February 2013 at 1:14 pm
Anonymous says:
Administrator says:
“Not a fucking chance. Prices will drop. Competition will drive prices down. A monopoly will never have lower prices. You must be a government drone union employee.”
Actually admin, I have to agree with the observations of Willdean. In WA state, prices went up across the board despite the fact that every fucking store in the state now sells liquor. Idaho liquor stores still have their parking lots packed with cars bearing WA license plates because it is cheaper to buy from state run stores in ID.
You mentioned that PA residents drive to DE to buy liquor and then they get pulled over by PA cops. Same thing happened to WA residents coming to ID until the cops fucked with a lawyer who sued them for restricting trade between states. The sting operations stopped after that.
I_S
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1st February 2013 at 2:28 pm
IndenturedServant says:
Anonymous above was I.
I_S
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1st February 2013 at 2:29 pm
Administrator says:
IS
The liquor stores already charge sales tax and all applicable taxes, along with their markup. The state stores make a profit.
Please explain to me how prices would go up if there are thousands of new competing locations selling a greater variety of alcohol.
It’s utterly ridiculous to argue that prices would go up.
You must be leaving some facts out of whatever Washington did. They must still be manipulating the system to make prices go higher.
The free market with competition will always drive prices lower (aka Wal-Mart)
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1st February 2013 at 2:41 pm
Administrator says:
IS
Please read the article below. Washington DID NOT privatize their liquor stores. They imposed new taxes, new fees, instituted new restrictions, and funneled the business through government selected distributors. This isn’t even close to a free market. Get your facts straight.
Liquor sticker shock stirs up Washington state drinkers
June 02, 2012|Laura L. Myers | Reuters
KIRKLAND, Washington (Reuters) – Washington state has extricated itself from decades in the liquor business, a move that is likely to give drinkers a headache when they reach for bottled spirits on local store shelves.
Under a measure approved by voters in November, Washington on Friday became the first state since the repeal of Prohibition in 1933 to privatize a government-run liquor retail and distribution system dating to the 1930s.
The measure also changed the state’s wine distribution laws, established new regulations for alcohol advertising, created new franchise protections for liquor distributors and allowed grocery stores, already permitted to sell beer and wine, to sell spirits.
The bad news for customers is that on average, per-bottle prices on liquor could rise between 10 percent and 30 percent, retailers say.
The initiative imposed a new fee structure that raises those costs by 27 percent, which will likely be passed on to consumers, said Brian Smith, spokesman for the Washington State Liquor Control Board.
On Saturday there were indications prices were on the upswing. A bottle of Glenlivet 12-year single malt Scotch whisky sold for $54.63 at a Safeway in the Seattle suburb of Kirkland. That compares to $39.95 under state-mandated prices before the change went into effect, according to a database posted on the website of the Seattle Times newspaper.
The state’s markup on wholesale liquor had been nearly 52 percent. The new private-sector markup could be as high as 72 percent, including newly imposed state fees, Smith said.
“Prices have gone up because of the fees,” Smith said.
The liquor board on Saturday could not provide information on exactly how much prices have risen across the state.
The new law imposes two additional taxes, referred to as license fees, that businesses pay to the state for the privilege of selling liquor – 10 percent paid by wholesale distributors and 17 percent paid by retailers.
RESTAURANTS SEE PRICE GOUGING
A state analysis of the new law predicted that those costs would be largely passed on to consumers in the form of markups.
Already, liquor industry insiders are blaming wholesale distributors – two of which control about 80 percent of the state’s liquor products – for the bulk of the price hikes.
“What restaurants and retailers suspect … is that distributors are padding their wholesale margin in order to recoup” the license fees they pay, said Joel Benoliel, a spokesman for retail giant Costco.
“There’s price-gouging going on,” said Bruce Beckett, a Washington Restaurant Association spokesman.
Smith said retailers and wholesalers alike were passing on their license fees.
“So what you have is distributors marking up the product (for profit) and adding 10 percent, then retailers marking up the product (for profit) and adding a 17-percent fee,” he said.
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1st February 2013 at 2:50 pm
SSS says:
Willadean and I_S
It pains me deeply to do this, but I gotta go with Admin on this issue of lower costs for liquor in a free market. I don’t what the state of Washington is doing to fuck with the system, but a true free market just buries the Pennsylvania State Liquor Stores along the southern border.
Admin mentions Delaware. Well, I was born and raised in a Pennsylvania town just one mile north of the Mason-Dixon Line. And I can guarantee you that people in my boyhood corner of the world have been stampeding into Maryland to buy liquor since way before I was born. My dad did it, his friends did it, hell, everyone I know did it.
Nothing has changed one iota. There is a Maryland village of about 500 people six miles south from my hometown of 10,000 people. There are TWO fucking liquor stores in that village and not one single grocery store. Are there Pennsylavania plates on the cars in the parking lots of those liquor stores? Well, duh, is the Pope Catholic?
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1st February 2013 at 3:17 pm
IndenturedServant says:
I was simply pointing out my own observation that prices went up when the WA state run stores closed just like Willadean said. How or why, I could not and did not say.
Prices in WA were cheaper before privatization but they were still cheaper in ID then as well. Now prices are quite a bit higher in private, WA stores and state run ID stores are seeing an increase in WA residents purchasing liquor across the border.
I rarely drink liquor so apart from wanting every govt entity out of the mix, I could not care less about the issue. Govt ruins everything it touches.
I_S
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1st February 2013 at 3:23 pm
Administrator says:
Prices went up because the Washington State government drones imposed a new 27% fee.
That has nothing to do with privatization. It has to do with government fucking something up again.
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1st February 2013 at 3:32 pm
SSS says:
The Pennsylanvania Liquor Control Board was established in conjunction with the 21st Amendment and the repeal of prohibition. In 1933, just four days before the sale of alcohol became legal in Pennsylvania, the Board was officially organized. Upon its creation, Governor Gifford Pinchot stated that the purpose of the Board was to “discourage the purchase of alcoholic beverages by making it as inconvenient and expensive as possible.”
Mission accomplished.
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1st February 2013 at 3:58 pm