Pennsylvania: Purchasing Liquor In The Time Of Coronavirus
Pennsylvania’s Fine Wine & Good Spirits stores started taking online orders on April 1, after in-person sales at all of the state’s liquor stores ended on March 17. This is not to say that Pennsylvania’s State Stores have been able to fulfill the desires (needs?) of their customers since they reoponed sales through their website.
If you’ve gone to the website to buy in-state booze, you have probably encountered the message above, and not much else. And if you bothered to click on the link below the message, you saw the following explantion from the LCB as to why you can’t buy anything from them, at this time.
Until further notice, customers can purchase up to six bottles per transaction from a reduced catalogue of about 1,000 top-selling wines and spirits from the website. All orders must be shipped to home or non-store addresses, and only one order per address will be fulfilled per day.
Since we will be limiting the numbers of employees working in any facility at the same time in an effort to protect our employees and balance public health, we expect consumer interest and site traffic to initially exceed what we will be able to fulfill. We ask for your patience and understanding, and as order fulfillment capacity increases, the PLCB will consider increasing the number of orders it’s able to accept each day.
Libertarian Website Slams PA Liquor Control Board for Making a Bad Situation Worse
Last week, Reason.com, the most widely read Libertarian online publication, ran a story that was highly critical of the LCB’s closing down its stores.
Reason referred to a NJ.com article that reported ” ‘There was a panic, a tsunami of business,’ said Paul Santelle, executive director of the New Jersey Liquor Store Association, a trade group for ‘package store’ owners. It was a scary level of business never seen before. It was like the last two weeks before Christmas and New Year.’ “.
From Reason.com: The shuttering of Pennsylvania’s state-run stores meant that for weeks, it was nearly impossible to buy liquor legally within state borders. Only in-state distilleries licensed for direct consumer sales were able to sell spirits.
“By closing all the stores, what they are doing is forcing a lot of people to simply go out of state,” says David Ozgo, the Senior Vice President of Economic & Strategic Analysis for DISCUS, the Distilled Spirits Council of the United States. Ozgo notes that while other states also own and operate liquor stores, Pennsylvania is “the only state in the country that has taken this extreme measure.”
That didn’t just make it harder for Pennsylvanians to buy liquor. It also made it unusually dangerous, as the experience of liquor retailers across the border in New Jersey shows. As Matt Dogali, the president and CEO of the American Distilled Spirits Alliance, told me, “It’s counter to [COVID-19–related] containment measures to force people to travel long distances to crowded stores.”
Social distancing guidelines encourage people to travel as little as possible and to keep their distance when in the presence of others. That’s much harder to do when the only option for purchasing liquor involves crossing a border. At least one county in West Virginia now prohibits the sale of liquor to Pennsylvania residents in order to stem the tide of border-crossing customers.
Last week, Phillymag.com presented a comprehensive list of where Pennsylvanians can buy their essential alcholhol based beverages.
Walter Palmer of Palmer Distilling in Manayunk said he was delivering one or more cases (six bottles) of his Liberty Gin to homes in the Five County Area, and shipping to locations outside the region.
For a $10 flat shipping fee, Philadelphia Distilling offers two kinds of vodka, three different gins, and two different liqueurs.
