Senator takes weak swipe at privatizing liquor sales
One of the greatly anticipated grand pillars of Gov. Tom Corbett’s $28 billion budget package has turned out rather spindly.
The Senate version of a state liquor privatization plan, introduced Tuesday, falls far short of what most Pennsylvania consumers would consider privatization.
The legislation proposed by Sen. Charles “Chuck” McIlhinney, R-Bucks and Montgomery counties, would allow the state’s 12,000 existing licensees — namely bars, distributors and restaurants, along with a smattering of supermarkets with a restaurant-style beer license — to obtain an $8,000 supplemental annual license to sell beer, wine and liquor to go. State-run liquor stores would phase out over an unspecified number of years as some of the private licensees evolved into bonafide liquor stores under McIlhinney’s plan.
In other words, there will be no alcoholic beverage sales of any kind at grocery stores, gas station convenience stores, big-box stores or any other conventional retail outlet.
McIlhinney’s proposal would not even touch the state’s current wholesale distribution system, but it would authorize the Liquor Control Board and the Legislative Budget and Finance Committee to study the state wholesale system’s future viability.
Taken whole, the proposal defeats the purpose of privatization — at least in the eyes of consumers, it would. The legislation fails to enhance customer convenience and does nothing to promote price-reducing competition among retailers.
What it does instead is protect the interests of existing licensees, who no doubt will back it wholeheartedly. The state’s alcoholic beverage industry will love this legislation, since it changes essentially nothing for existing sellers.
Even with a Republican majority in the Senate as well as the House, this privatization package will be a hard sell — particularly with only 10 days to go before the June 30 deadline.
It’s an unfortunate complication for the governor that privatization is a cornerpiece of his budget, because McIlhinney’s proposal isn’t privatization as much as it is protectionism.
