Maybe this is only of interest to me, since my formative years were spent in Pennsylvania, the state with probably the dumbest liquor laws in existence. You have to buy all your liquor at state-approved liquor stores (and the Liquor Control Board of the state is responsible for obtaining all the stuff you can buy as a consumer), and they are usually open only during regular business hours (9-5 weekdays, maybe Saturdays, don't even think about wanting to pick up vodka on a Sunday). I spent my teen years in a blue-law, dry county (we had one bar, a liquor store open 9-5 weekdays, a beer distributor, and when the Pizza Hut at the edge of town got its beer license in the eighties that was a big deal).
You can't bring wine in from out of state (even though everyone and their brother makes "booze runs" to Maryland and Delaware), and on the off chance that someone like Stony Hill can (there is a newish law allowing this), you end up paying over 400 dollars for a not-even-300-dollar case:
Case of Stony Hill 2001 Chardonnay:$ 292.00
Shipping to PA:60.00
18% PA Emergency Tax:52.56
6% PA Sales Tax:17.52
PA Per-order Handling Fee:4.50
1% Philadelphia/Pittsburgh only sales tax:2.92
Order Total:429.50
I am not sure what the emergency tax is, and once you do get your order in Stony Hill has to ship it to one of the state approved liquor stores and then you have to go get it, so it certainly isn't a fun process. (God knows if you could get it shipped safely and easily to your house and have a person over 21 years old sign for it before delivery, the country would go to the heathens! I mean, look at us out here in California, land of debauchery and free running wine. The children, they are drunk in the streets here.)
Anyway, there's a new guy, Jonathan Newman, heading up the LCB there, and he is doing his best to get PA some decent wine, and even get it at amazing prices. He asks for/demands prices he wants from the wineries out here in CA and gets them most of the time. He's keeping the wine actually refrigerated and has definitely radical (for the state/government) views of how wine should be kept, handled, and sold. He seems to care!
I didn't see any evidence of this when I was back in the state at Christmas last year-- mostly I saw 20 dollar bottles of Bonny Doon Big House Red and not much else-- but good luck to him. I wasn't in a Premium Collection store, though, I was in a regular old state store (there are two levels and the fancier stores are the ones that get most of the good stuff). I know there are folks in PA who would like some decent wine. And decent prices, better than CA, would be the icing on the cake.
(No, mom, this doesn't mean I am going to move home!)


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