Good idea, privitization has been such a rousing (not) success. maybe if we take it out of the hands of the govenment we can get more liquor into the hands of underage drinkers, fine them and their parents heavily to make up for the budget shortfalls sure to occur when this cash stream is dried up. Repubs who are unwilling to tax smokeless tobacco, cigars, and those out of state natural gas drillers, will surely fall all over themselves to relieve private liquor dealers to shed any tax liability. We can replace all those decent paying jobs with minimum wage ones in the discount liquor marts.

Pennsylvania already has one of the highest rates of underage drinking. The PLCB is selling to minors already, they just aren’t policing and doing stings on themselves.

Adam there’s nothing to support your contention that Pa. has one of the highest rates of underage drinking, let alone that the PLCB is selling it to minors. Most underage drinkers in the state of Pennsylvania drink beer, not hard liquor. Beer in Pa. is sold by private business. You could at least make an effort to provide honest information, but that would undercut your premise that private liquor sales would be a net plus for the state of Pa.

If this were the only issue on the ballot I would support it, but turning over the State government to one party control will be a disaster for Pennsylvania.

Corbett’s true colors will show through. I am certain he will allow the distributors to write any legislation to change the system. We will end up with a no-ship, three-tier system and the only change will be the distributors will have the monopoly and not the state. I am for privatization but the devil is in the details. Corbett sides with big business on almost every issue. He is not pro-consumer.

Adam – how would you address the buying power of the agency as they are one of if not the largest purchaser in the country??? They then can pass savings onto the consumer and increase state revenues. I am sure that if monitored more closely that they could pass further savings onto the consumer if they chose to. But, maybe a co-op for purchases could be instituted in privatization and then a win win? I am not sure.

Why not sell of the state parks and museums too while we’re at it? What in the world is Pa doing with assets? THAT MAKE MONEY????
Selling the goose that lays golden eggs? Sounds like either the guy who is selling is getting a kick-back or he is just plain dumb.

Rob,

Should the state own all the grocery stores? Should PA ban Home Depot, Lowes and mom and pop hardware stores and open state run hardware stores?

boxermachine,

The state making money at the expense of our freedom of choice is not acceptable. The state should generate revenue from alcohol via taxes, not running a retail business.

[...] people get passionate about their drinks – especially when those drinks are restricted at the hands of a state monopoly that jacks [...]

The argument about the state’s buying power doesn’t hold much weight if you look at home much more we pay than customers in other states. When I was planning our Hawaiian vacation, I looked at this issue when I found a flyer for wine & liquor prices at a local drugstore out there and compared them with the “bulk purchasing power” prices of Pennsylvania.

First off, nearly everything is more expensive in Hawaii than Pennsylvania because it costs so much to transport it. Secondly, they don’t have anywhere near the same bulk purchasing power. Yet, amazingly, their nearest location to our condo was better stocked than two of the PLCB locations near us, and just about every bottle I recognized was cheaper than Pennsylvania.

Oh, and how about the fact that there’s a better selection out there? I was able to try varieties that the bureaucrats at the PLCB haven’t approved for us to try. Better selection, better prices – I’ll gladly give up the supposed benefits to the PLCB buying power.

What will you say when your ‘choice’ bottle costs even more when a private liquor store sells it? “This is great, I’m now paying even more, but at least I didn’t have to get it at a State store?”

I dont know if anyone has actually looked into it, but the PLCB brings in almost 500 million dollars into the states coffers every year. granted if they were to privatize and sell off the rights to sell liquor to the average person, they could bring in up to 2 billion dollars up front. But what happens when that runs out? In order to make up for the lost revenue, they would in turn have to hike up taxes all around, (including the sales tax of 6%) to try and make ends meet. Your precious liquor will also go up in prices somewhat due to the fact that NO-ONE in the private sector could have the buying power to buy in such bulk as the PLCB does from it’s vendors.
The PLCB is the #1 buyer of wine in the ENTIRE US!
What private liquor store owner can match that?
All those wines that people ask to have ordered in for them, not gonna happen under private ownership. The minimum order to get most of them would be out of the range for 95% of owners to even consider.

Millions in sales are lost to New Jersey each year. NJ is 11th in population yet 5th in per capita alcohol purchases. It also has a significantly lower % of DUI deaths than PA. In other words, NJ’s system WORKS for both the public and for public safety. Why not copy that.

Most of the “facts” supporting a continued monopoly come from the prohibitionist-leaning Marin Institute and the PLCB employee union. Believe their fear tactics if you wish, but they’re not backed by actual facts and statistics. The states with the lowest DUIs per capita are all in the Northeast and none are state-controlled (NJ, NY, MA, CT).

The place to raise revenue is in the beer tax, which is 8 cents per gallon and hasn’t increased since 1947. NJ’s is 12 cents.

Additionally, privatization would increase teh number of stores (without necessarily increasing consumption, except in the Philly area as they won’t have to go to NJ anymore). You’d have more small businesses, more jobs created (and employee taxes), more properties leased, more advertising expenditures and tens of mil

(cont.) millions less expenditures at the state level. All while providing better service as non-union employees and small business owners will actually understand the product better and care about developing customer relationships.

The only people who can possibly support continuing the current path are either abolitionists or people who’ve never been outside the state to see how others handle booze sales. Can’t change the former, but anyone who’s been to Zachy’s in NY, the Wine Library in NJ or even Warehouse Liquors in CT would agree that prices and service are notably better, despite PAs buying power providing alledged savings to the consumer.

What makes Alcohol so expensive in PA is the fact that there are so many taxes on it even as the state buys it. There is a 30% cost increase for emergency services that automatically goes into the shelf price formula. Also there are other taxes that are included before the shelf price. This causes about a 70% mark up on the price the Distributors sell to the PLCB. Distributors and suppliers would love to see prices lower, it adds to more cases and more cases being bought in PA and not in NJ, DE or MD.

Just think how much your taxes will go up, when thousands of employees will be collecting unemployment, food stamps, EBT, ACCESS and medicaid!!! Oh yeah….I forgot…..a private owned business is gonna pay these people really well. NOT! I have a friend who worked for Total Wine…..she left because the pay was OK, but she couldn’t afford to have medical insurance. They didn’t offer it. Let’s all create more on the roles of unemployment and public assistance. How is public assistance gonna work when none of the public has jobs?