Liberate beer sales in Pennsylvania please (Pittsburgh, Altoona: home, buying, college)

[The_Outsider]

What’s the deal with beer distributors? I've been here two years now and I can never get an answer out of anyone that makes any sense. Why can you only buy beer from distributors and six pack shops in this state? It makes no sense at all. What’s with the monopoly?

It's not a horrible inconvenience but most beer distributors are closed on Sundays and also close early in the evening during the week. If you can’t buy from the distributor then you get robbed by the six pack shop. It would be nice to pick up beer at the local grocery store and knock out two birds with one stone. And convenience stores are usually open 24 hours. Being able to buy from either retailer would probably force competition and lower the price too. It’s a win win situation for the consumer. This would really work well if you lived out in the boonies too, no more driving 10 miles to a town just to buy some beer. Where I live everything is in walking distance except for the beer distributor. It also seems to be the case in a lot of small towns in Pennsylvania.

I just signed an online petition supporting the sale of beer at grocery and convenience stores in PA. I won’t advertise the convenience store supporting it but you can Google “Beer Petition Pennsylvania” if you would like to sign it

[KevinE]

Originally Posted by The_Outsider

Why can you only buy beer from distributors and six pack shops in this state? It makes no sense at all. What’s with the monopoly?

It's an ancient blue law that the beer distributors are fighting to keep in place since they would disappear overnight without the law. Many of the larger grocery chains and beer wholesalers have been pushing for a repeal but so far no luck.

[Huskyz]

It's archaic but so are some other things in PA. Some Weis and Wegmans (super)Markets are now selling beer. What I saw looked like it was mostly 6 and 12 packs with a few brands available in cases.

Hopefully, it is a start.

[PeterRabbit]

We've got a supermarket in Western Pa. that has recently been approved to sell beer in a few of it's locations. The rule or law is that they have to have a cafe or restaurant within the grocery store that's separated somehow and the laws prevailing on bars like the max buying of 2 six-packs at a time are in force. The difference might be that they're allowed to sell wine. I haven't paid much attention to it because its still a major inconvenience.

[Honest Bob]

Look at it from my point of view. I was once employed by a beer distributor in Clearfield PA. Clearfield had at least 3 - maybe 4 beer distributors at any one time.

That created competition and the competition of Jacks, West Side, Budget Beverage and also Errigo's in Curwensville caused the beer to be cheaper then it was being sold in the city it was being produced in - such as Iron City or Straub.

Punxsutawney had 3 beer distributors and they had prices that was cheaper then Du Bois - 20 miles away to the north or Indiana PA - 25 miles to the South. Both cities and both college towns.

One beer distributor went out of business and the other two raised their prices.

When you get into national distributorships where one distributor is responsible for the distribution to all the local distributors such as is the case with Coors coming out of W&L in Harrisburg and being sold out of the State College distributor to all the local distributors east of Du Bois or Iron City coming out of Pittsburgh and being sold out of Prontocks in Du bois in the Punxsy area, even though Mahoning Beer distributor has been selling Iron City for years longer then Prontocks. Either you buy through them or you cannot buy it. They set the price for the local beer distributors.

You cannot buy Iron City in Punxsutawney except through the Frank n Steins restaurant which has it trucked in and sells it 6 packs only.

If you change the way it is being sold and move the sales to the grocery stores, who are they going to buy it from? You aren't going to be able to enforce all of the County Markets and Shop n Saves when they are all out of different territories and they are definitely not going to way to pay different prices for different stores.

If the grocery stores sells it, then the drug stores is going to want to sell it also. Then you are going to go through the same thing with the Rite Aid chain. The price will be cheap for a while, until they run everyone else out of business, then they will raise their prices higher then everyone else and you are going to be forced to pay it or go without.

Asking a complex question and expecting a simple answer is like trying to change how people dress or how they act by passing a law. Once it is passed, who is going to enforce it? How will you collect the taxes?

Most towns only has one or two beer distributors, but has many grocery stores. You will probably eliminate several jobs - because stores won't need to hire more people to sell beer, since everyone is already at work and you can just move people around. But who is going to deliver to the bars and taverns and restaurants when you take away the home trade part of the business? Most businesses could not afford to loose the home trade business.

[pman]

just as an FYI, the PLCB was set up to make alcohol consumption expensive and difficult after the end of prohibition. It was never popular, just with a teetotaling bureaucracy and now we have to live with it. Although I'm a beer drinker, I find the wine situation to be worse. at least beer distributors and six packs shops are frequently owned by beer people. a few years ago Rendell legalized (or was it Schweiker?) legalized Sunday sales. Before that distributors weren't even allowed to be open on Sundays, now they're allowed to be open 12-5 as are liquor stores. to add insult to injury, alcohol is taxed an additional 18% to help cleanup the johnstown flood of 1938. the whole system should be scrapped in favor of a free market, no distributors either at the retail OR commercial level.

[bnepler]

It's a revenue source for the state government and they can't stand competition. I lived in Florida and loved being able to walk in a grocery store and buy beer wine and even liquor in some. It's all political anymore. It keeps the union workers working, their state workers in PA.

[PeeAye Native]

In addition to the answers above, I'll add mine. There are two main factors:

PA still has a so-called "three-tiered alcohol distribution" system. It's a hold over from the 1920s prohibition era. Brief explanation here from Wikipedia.

Second, 'special interests' and politics play a role in keeping it this way, and not moving on a more user-friendly method of selling alcohol. Translation: The beer distributors have a will funded lobby at the state level, as do the beer manufacturers, as do the state liquor store employees.

Politicians at the state level have tried to change this (ex., former governor Tom Ridge), but have not been successful, for various reasons, mostly being that the special interest money lubricates state legislators, and influences secondarily conservative areas of the state (ex., don't allow this to change, or the wrath of god will come down upon the state and there will be 60 years of pestilence and plagues of locusts...) to the point where it's been the legislature that always votes down any changes.

In recent history, a few businesses, Sheetz convenience stores of Altoona, Weis grocery stores, and Wegmans grocery stores (Giant is involved, too) have been pushing the envelope, to sell beer in their retail establishments. This is opposed by the beer distributors and traditional beer retailers (corner bars whth six-pack carryouts). But it is a good thing for consumers, who will get more competition on selection and price.

[The_Outsider]

Originally Posted by PeterRabbit

We've got a supermarket in Western Pa. that has recently been approved to sell beer in a few of it's locations. The rule or law is that they have to have a cafe or restaurant within the grocery store that's separated somehow and the laws prevailing on bars like the max buying of 2 six-packs at a time are in force. The difference might be that they're allowed to sell wine. I haven't paid much attention to it because its still a major inconvenience.

What market is that? my wife would really like to be able to buy wine at the grovery store like we used to in other states. As it is right now it's really inconvenient to go to the spirits distributor for wine.

[The_Outsider]

You guys have given me a wealth of info on this subject, thanks.

I always assumed it was the distributors holding up this archaic law. I often wondered (especially after getting to the distributor too late and having to pay $9.00 for a 6 pack at a bar) how a few distributors could keep the laws in place against hundreds of thousands of beer consumers.

Now I see it goes far beyond the licensed distributors. Hopefully it changes soon. When I moved here in 2007 a 30 pack was $19.50, in '08 it was $20.50, in early '09 it was $21.75, now it's at $23.00 for a 30 pack.

Wish I had the talent to brew my own.