FoodBanter.com - View Single Post - Sunday Beer Sales In PA Slower Than Forecasted

wrote:

> OK, I guess I meant, "do you have to
> go to a separate store to buy beer & wine?"
>
> As opposed to like here in California,
> where you can buy any alcoholic beverage
> in the grocery store, along with your bread & butter,
> meat and potatos, etc.

Yeah, from state to state, alcohol sales laws do differ quite a bit.
I'm in New Jersey, where we have separate "liquor stores" and all
alcoholic "package goods" are sold in them for the most part- altho'
there are exceptions- some grocery stores and drug stores have licenses
and sell alcohol along side their other goods. I'd always thought that
these were older licenses, grandfathered into current laws, until towns
started giving new big box "club" stores licenses for the same sort of
sales.

Some states treat all alcoholic beverage sales the same, some separate
beer from wine & liquor, others beer & wine from liquor. Sometimes
makes it difficult for sake, cider, "wine cooler" & "malt alternative"
marketers.

A state-by-state list of where, when and how alcoholic beverages are
sold would make a good website. (I'd do it, but I'd rather sit on the
back deck and drink beer...).

> I remember visiting British Columbia (Canada) once,
> and you had to buy your beer a a separate store,
> and it turned out they weren't open on Sundays.
>
> I thought it was a "state run" store,
> because it had all the ambiance of
> your basic government owned establishment.

Yeah, I used to think the same about Ontario's beer stores, but
apparently they're owned by the two big brewers (Molson and Labatt).

http://www.thebeerstore.ca/

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>
>
> wrote:
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wrote:
>>
>>
>>>Is PA one of those states where you have to
>>>go to a separate "state run" store to buy beer & wine
>>>and anything alcoholic?
>>
>>No for beer, (and businesses with names like "W.R. Hickey Beer
>>Distributor Inc." and "Pletcher's Beer Distributor" is kinda a
>>give-away) but yes for wine and liquor http://www.lcb.state.pa.us/ .
>>
>>Basically, beer is sold retail only by the case (no less) by "beer
>>distributors", lesser quantities by bars and other shops ("6 pack shops"
>>that usually sell prepared food, as well), usually at much higher prices
>>(do they still limit the amount that can be sold at one time to one
>>person to 2 six-packs?). It's pretty much a system unique to PA (and,
>>I've always felt was one of the reasons that more of PA's small
>>breweries survived than most every other states, in the pre-microbrewery
>>era).
>>
>>I can't think of ANY state that only allows *beer* sales from "state
>>stores". (Even Ontario's "Beer Stores" are a privately-owned, tho' a
>>state-sanctioned monopoly, right?).
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