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A Push to Privatize Pennsylvania Liquor Stores
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| Contributor | Scott³ |
| Last Edited | Scott³ Jan 04, 2011 08:59am |
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| Category | Analysis |
| Author | Katharine Q. Seelye |
| Media | Newspaper - New York Times |
| News Date | Friday, December 31, 2010 02:00:00 PM UTC0:0 |
| Description | "Ralph Miranda was looking for eggnog here the other day at the state liquor store, a dated and somewhat forlorn little shop with no name, just the Soviet-style designation #5801. When the store manager told him they were out, Mr. Miranda muttered, “That’s why you privatize.”
The next nearest store in this rural area of northeast Pennsylvania, a depressed region of old coal mines and small farms, is 11 miles away. And because #5801 loses money, it is closed four days a week, with limited hours the other three.
Like prisoners in the gulag, consumers here can only fantasize about buying their wine and liquor in a competitive free market. The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania has run the liquor stores for eight decades, a relic of the post-Prohibition era, when government thought controlling the sale of alcohol would limit consumption.
The legislature has consistently dismissed talk of privatizing the system, mainly because of opposition from the union representing the store workers and from groups like Mothers Against Drunk Driving and conservative teetotalers, all influential in the state.
But since the election in November of a Republican governor who campaigned against the state stores, and with new lopsided Republican majorities in the Statehouse, privatization may be closer than ever." |
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