PITTSBURGH TRIBUNE: …House Republicans this month plan to pass a bill to sell the Pennsylvania Liquor Control Board stores and system to generate an estimated $1 billion for the state. Senate Minority Leader Jay Costa, D-Forest Hills, said he anticipates Gov. Tom Wolf will introduce liquor store modernization proposals.
“It’ll be more a conversation of customer convenience, customer access,” Costa said in a meeting with Tribune-Review reporters and editors, “along the lines of some of the things Senate Democrats have been talking about, in terms of modernization.”
Past proposals included expanding hours, flexible pricing and direct shipping policies aimed to generate $100 million to $125 million annually. Costa said those ideas have broader appeal than selling the system, even among some Republicans… (more)
Real privatization of this system could be a good thing as long as it doesn’t include some type of sweetheart deal to one of their campaign contributing grafters like Corbett proposed. But having lived in other states and not being a drinker myself, Pennsylvania has a lot of heavy drinking people, they don’t seem to be impaired in obtaining cheap booze.
AND, privatization will lead to INCREASED prices, PA liquor agency is one of the largest purchasers of alcoholic beverages in the world, they get a volume discount in their wholesale purchasing.
Splitting up into small chains and mom and pop stores will NOT lead to cheaper prices. Lived in Maryland for years with privatized liquor and the selections were poor and the prices much higher than in PA.
These are facts I have observed myself. Privatization advocates are looking always to line their pockets at citizen’s expense under the guise of making products cheaper, reality prevails over dogma in my world, unfortunately dogma is easier to take.
So the other point which never gets addressed and it highlights just how stupid our politicians are, and Corbett used to use this point as cover for his pocket lining privatization scheme. He’d go on camera and prattle on about how Joe Sixpack complained about how hard it was to get sauced on a Sunday when I can’t see any connection with the liquor control in the state and the byzantine laws set up to keep beer distribution in the hands of a few beer distributors who got laws passed requiring you to purchase a whole case of beer at a time when all one wants is a six pack.
How about reviewing this whole mouldering mess of special interest laws that help make PA look like some type feudal kingdom to anyone visiting the state for the first time?
We are so used to our corruption, inept government, special interest business lobby legislature that we don’t realize how this keeps our state down. Just slapping a PA.com on our license plates doesn’t fool the rest of the country into thinking this state is modern, capable, or forward-thinking in any way, trust me.