Didja Forget About the Courtesy Contract?
Do you remember how pissed off everyone was about the PLCB's "courtesy training contract?" Back in March, it came out that the agency was going to spend $173,820 on training State Store System clerks "how to greet someone, where to stand, and how to read a customer's cues." When that hit the fan, the PLCB tried to distance themselves from it by denying it was about manners: "A $173,000 contract on teaching manners – as has been widely reported – would be ridiculous," said PLCB Chairman PJ Stapleton. Yet the RFP f

"More proof: State should exit liquor business"
That's a quote from the Harrisburg Patriot-News editorial page. They're citing a study from the Commonwealth Foundation for Public Policy Analysis (full text of the study is here, and it's worth a read), a libertarian-leaning PA think tank, that found...well, essentially found what I was saying here, and then backed it up with

Score One for the PLCB
Credit where it's due: the PLCB has done A Good Thing. PhillyMag food columnist and research editor Victor Fiorillo reported a few months ago that he'd been served what he thought was bogus Maker's Mark at Oscar's, a popular Center City dive-ish bar. He ordered another, surreptitiously poured it into a container, and left the bar with it. He sent it to the Bureau of Liquor Control Enforcement and filed a complaint.

"...bringing any alcoholic beverage into Pennsylvania is illegal..."
Well, I got my response. I recently wrote to the PLCB to ask them how a private citizen, who happened to be in another state and saw a nice bottle of wine for sale, and wanted to bring that bottle home to Pennsylvania, could do their duty to the Commonwealth, fill out a form, pay the taxes, or so on. How could we do the right thing in order to bring this into the State and be square, in other words?After two weeks -- a relatively short time, considering it came from the PLCB's

Following the Proper Protocol
People have asked, here and on Facebook, regarding those two folks who got busted in Sayre for bringing booze into PA...what IS the proper protocol for bringing alcoholic beverages into the state? Good question. So I asked the PLCB:Good morning,My friends and I have been discussing a news item from the Towanda Daily Review about two Pennsylvanians who were recently cited by the LCB for "purchasing alcoholic beverages out of state, and not following proper protocol for bringing alcoholic beverages into Pennsylvania."We all live near the New Jersey or Delaware borders, and we