Could it finally happen? After decades of hemming, hawing, and growing public anger over Pennsylvania’s outdated regulations, change may finally be in the cards for the Keystone State. This month, the House will very likely take up a bill sponsored by Rep. Turzai that would overhaul rules for liquor, wine, and beer. HB11 would:
- Sell the state-owned stores and issue 1,600 retail licenses.
- Allow beer distributors to sell in any combination of six-packs (currently they must sell at least a case).
- Eliminate the “Johnstown Flood Tax,” which has been imposing an 18 percent tax on liquor sold in PA since 1936. The bill would replace the current structure with a per gallon sold tax rate. Somewhere in the range of $8.25 to $9 for wine and $11 to $12 per gallon for spirits.
- Based on a study conducted for the Corbett administration, the new rules would bring the state $1.1 billion to $1.9 billion in revenue that would go towards the state’s roads and bridges.
Unfortunately, even if this proposal is approved, the changes would happen at a virtual snail’s pace — and the plan maintains arbitrary limits on who can sell alcohol. It simply doesn’t go far enough; not by a long shot. As noted by Keystone Politics, of the s1,600 licenses, the first 1,060 will be offered to beer distributors first. It will take five years to fully close down all of the state-run stores, and it will be another 10 years before supermarkets could get into the business of selling alcohol.
As I’ve written before, the main reason to abolish the government-run liquor stores is because it is not the job of government to sell alcohol. Of course, there are many practical reasons to privatize the system including increased sales (from all the Pennsylvanians not jumping the border to buy their booze) and would increase availability for consumers of alcohol in Pennsylvania who are currently one of the worst-served markets in the nation. A study prepared by the Commonwealth Foundation, a Harrisburg-based public policy group, demonstrated the abject failure of the state’s liquor regulations. Selection in the state stores, hours, and locations leave much to be desired. Putting the matter in particularly stark terms, the study shows that ratio of stores per population in Pennsylvania is far below the national average.
While hopes of the issue being taken up this week were dashed on Wednesday — the day a vote was scheduled to take place — the House GOP spokesman Steve Miskin assured reporters that the privatization bill was not dead. “We believe the votes are going to be there,” he said and explained that the bill was delayed by the 300 amendments filed to the proposal and budget meetings that required Turzai’s attention.
If this sorry excuse for a privatization plan can’t make it through the legislature, it’s likely that Pennsylvanians are going to have to keep on waiting for another few decades for a proper proposal to truly ditch government-run alcohol sales.
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It’s so easy to talk of getting rid of something you claim is so outdated, but we employees that work this system feel other wise. Many claim that it will be better, it won’t. Many believe that prices will go down, be for real! Every store that opens will have to raise their prices to make a profit. Someone please care about the 5,000 jobs that will be lost, not just the bottom line!
Sonya,
People still want liquor. As long as people want to buy liquor, people SELLING liquor will not be out of a job. They’re just not going to be centralized and homogenized now. Employers will increase, or reduce, pay for that job as it’s viable.
Liquor store workers who stay in retail will be working for minimum wage, in all likelihood, and will not accrue the state-supplied benefits they have now.
Of course the employees feel otherwise–and that’s understandable. They are worried about losing their jobs! While I can sympathize with the fear of how changing the system will affect everyone operating inside of it, that fear is no reason to maintain a system alone. The current state of alcohol regulation in PA is ineffective and expensive for both consumers and the state. Not to mention the fact that the government should have nothing to do with the buying and selling of alcohol…these are the reasons for change. If those who have been working at state stores are good at their jobs, which I suspect many of them are, then they will hopegully be able to find a place in one of the new stores opening as a result of the increase in licenses. It’s true that nobody can say for sure what the outcome will look like, but what I advocate for and what I think many Pennsylvanians want is to take a chance on improving the system rather than plodding along with the same-old same-old.
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