Post by Logan on Dec 3, 2016 16:15:57 GMT -6
Pennsylvania's answer to privatizing booze sales? Bigger, better state stores
WESTMONT, Pa. - Andy Rose wasn't thinking about the booze tax levied eight decades ago to help this region recover from a devastating flood, or the politics of the Liquor Control Board that controls alcohol sales in Pennsylvania.
He just wanted some wine.
So he came last week to the new state-run wine and spirits store that opened in this Johnstown suburb before Thanksgiving.
A law enacted this year lets Pennsylvanians for the first time buy wine at hundreds of grocery stores and gas stations, and online. Republican leaders who control the legislature insist total privatization remains their goal.
Yet here was Rose, browsing in one of dozens of State Stores opened or upgraded this year. Bigger and nicer than the one it replaced. And an example of how the LCB, created in the 1930s to regulate alcohol, has responded to the intensifying calls for its disbandment.
Read more: www.philly.com/philly/news/20161129_Pa__s_answer_to_privatizing_booze_sales__Bigger__better_state_stores.html
WESTMONT, Pa. - Andy Rose wasn't thinking about the booze tax levied eight decades ago to help this region recover from a devastating flood, or the politics of the Liquor Control Board that controls alcohol sales in Pennsylvania.
He just wanted some wine.
So he came last week to the new state-run wine and spirits store that opened in this Johnstown suburb before Thanksgiving.
A law enacted this year lets Pennsylvanians for the first time buy wine at hundreds of grocery stores and gas stations, and online. Republican leaders who control the legislature insist total privatization remains their goal.
Yet here was Rose, browsing in one of dozens of State Stores opened or upgraded this year. Bigger and nicer than the one it replaced. And an example of how the LCB, created in the 1930s to regulate alcohol, has responded to the intensifying calls for its disbandment.
Read more: www.philly.com/philly/news/20161129_Pa__s_answer_to_privatizing_booze_sales__Bigger__better_state_stores.html