Cracks in the facade of Pennsylvania's crazy beer laws?

[cdh]

About a week ago the cops tasked with enforcing the Pennsylvania Liquor Control Board's regulations did 3 simultaneous armed raids on the bars owned by one particular couple. What was the provocation for this armed assault on these drinking establishments you ask? Not rampant underage drinking, not repeated and excessive noise complaints, not illegal gambling happening in the establishments... their infraction: selling beer brands that had not been registered with the state by their producer. That's right... for no error or omission of their own commission, these bars were raided and 60+ gallons of beer was confiscated by armed men. Later it turns out that a significant fraction of the beer seized was actually properly registered after all.

That's a pretty outrageous sounding story, no? It certainly is to lots of Pennsylvanians who've been buzzing about it since it came out in the news. Facebook groups devoted to advocating rewriting the liquor code have sprung up, and have amassed more than 2000 members in less than a week. State representatives have been getting peppered with inquiries. Perhaps this particular episode of craziness will be the straw that breaks the Pennsylvania Liquor Camel's back.

Stay tuned for further developments...

Initially this broke on the blogs...

Philadelphia Inquirer story

Followup newspaper coverage

Beer Columnist's blog with ongoing updates

Edited March 11, 2010 by cdh (log)

[cdh]

As a bit of scene setting follow-up, things have been slowly changing in PA in recent years. Yes, we still have the you-must-buy-beer-by-the-case law. We still have bars in the take-out six-pack business. BUT Wegmans and a couple other grocery stores have managed to get single beers and six-packs into some grocery stores by setting up cafes, getting beer-licensed as food service establishments, and selling take-out beer that way. We've got a convenience store chain litigating a similar legal theory. State senators were introducing bills to reform the beer laws before any of this craziness happened.

Now that people are getting fired up, there is a real chance for reform to happen. Let's see if there is enough momentum to make it happen.

Edited March 11, 2010 by cdh (log)

[rlibkind]

iirc, the daily news had the story last friday, maybe saturday.

[KatieLoeb]

Rick Nichols is doing some sort of follow up story about this - he asked my opinions on the brew-haha when he was in OH a couple of nights ago.

There's quite a bit more to this story than meets the eye. I happen to be well acquainted with legal counsel for the wronged bar owners. Obviously we couldn't discuss the case or the facts directly, but suffice to say the PLCB ought to be very afraid that they're going to get strung up for this one. The raid a couple of days later at Origlio appears to have been a decoy to deflect attention away from the world of shit they've created for themselves and now stepped in.

Personally, I can't imagine holding the bar owners liable for the registrations. The breweries are clearly responsible for that end of it. Not to mention the fact that the website that lists the registered products so bar owners/restaurateurs could check that what they're serving is legit is woefully out of date and inaccurate. Bar owners probably have a pretty wide berth to sue for loss of inventory, interruption of business and damage to the products if/when they're returned. No telling how they'll be (mis)handled and stored by the PLCB or for how long.

I'll report back if I learn anymore dirt about this case.

[lancastermike]

What I'm wondering is who siced then om the bars to begin with. It said it was based on complaint. It would pretty much have to be somebody with knowledge of the system to make that complaint. I doubt very much some guy at the bar saw somebody with a beer and said to himself "Hey! That ain't on the list."

So I would guess it was some other bar owner or beer purveyor that was seriously upset with the owners.

[mattohara]

I bet Lew Bryson is going to get elected to office over this. What a great platform to campaign on!