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On January 14, the state liquor store at 40th and Market was abruptly shut down thanks to safety concerns about the apparently decrepit building. As a result, displaced customers have flooded into the store at 4906 Baltimore Avenue, prompting crazy long waits at a two-cash-register store that already (anecdotally appeared to) have some of the longest lines of any liquor store in the city.
“We are in the process of securing a new location,” says Pennsylvania Liquor Control Board (PLCB) Director of External Affairs Stacey Witalec, a process she says will take between six and eight months.
In the meantime, however, the state agency that runs Pennsylvania wine and liquor stores has no plans to do anything at all to ameliorate the situation at 49th and Baltimore Avenue. And the situation is truly dire―or at least dire as booze-related situations get.
On Friday, January 27 employees turned away this reporter's mother, visiting from out of town, saying that she would have to wait outside because the store was so packed. Unfavorable comparisons to the Soviet Union were later made.
This is a flabbergasting moment for the PLCB to exhibit such customer-maddening ineptitude. Gov. Tom Corbett and legislative Republicans are eager to privatize the state wine and liquor stores, and the odds of them accomplishing that feat appear to be much higher than in the past.
The PLCB, however, sits calmly in the eye of the storm and contends that waiting outside to purchase wine or liquor is normal in Philadelphia.
“We had to do that with the store at 40th and Market on Friday nights because of the influx of college students in the foot traffic in the area,” says Witalec.
I pressed her as to whether having “to cycle customers,” as she phrased it, was a reasonable status quo. She blamed the city's occupancy rules. Plus the Board has other stores.
“There are,” she said, “a large number of stores in that area.” Oh yeah, where?
South Street, she said. That isn't close to University City or Cedar Park, I said. You shouldn't have to take the bus to purchase wine.
She followed up by e-mail: “West Phila sites- we are working on opening new, rebranded locations in Paoli and Devon in May and/or June of this year. Are they farther west than you were thinking?”
Yes, I do consider a 30 minute ride to the suburbs to be rather 'far West.' I mean near 49th and Baltimore, the store that is currently drowning in clientele.
“They weren't quite sure how far west you were referring to when they gave me those sites,” Witalec responded. “We do have negotiations ongoing for a site near st. joe's downtown.”
St. Joseph's, of course, is nowhere near Center City Philadelphia. It is located so far from Center City that it's on a street called City Line Avenue, named such because it straddles the border with Lower Merion.
“We are in negotiations for a number of other locations,” she assured me, “including on the main line but again, we’ll be able to update more once those locations are finalized.”
This is a problem, perhaps, with a state agency making business decisions for Philadelphians using Google Maps from their Harrisburg office.
Witalec couldn't even say whether they would add new cash registers at the Baltimore location.
“We've gotten calls from other people as well,” she said.
The arguments for privatizing the state stores are numerous and obvious: better selection, more locations, and knowledgeable staff to help simpletons like me make good wine selections. There are also, however, a number of less well-known arguments against privatization, including the potential flood of bulletproof-glassed liquor stores into low-income neighborhoods, and the elimination of thousands of good union jobs in a state that can't afford to lose anymore good union jobs. And then there's the issue that privatization legislation could offer a sweetheart deal to beer distributors, who would be allowed to maintain their monopoly on bulk beer sales while expanding into wine. And the question of whether prices would necessarily drop.
But if PLCB wants to win over a skeptical public, why are they allowing this mess in West Philly?
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