N.J. Liquor Store Sales In Supermarkets?

Although advanced robots will tentatively soon sell wine in Pennsylvania grocery stores, New Jersey still has us beat in the alcohol game. Not only is 190-proof Everclear — “The choice of collegiate binge drinkers everywhere!” — legal in Jersey, but a Senate committee has voted to legalize liquor sales in supermarkets.

Easier access to liquor in N.J. is clearly a good thing for its residents. After all, how else would they survive Lou Dobbs’ possible run for governor? Oh, man, I think even in Pennsylvania we’ll need some Everclear for that. Over the Ben Franklin Bridge we go!

Buying liquor in N.J. groceries may be on tap [Courier-Post]
CNN’s Lou Dobbs won’t comment on run for N.J. governor [AP/Courier-Post]

Del. Wine Store Is Against Speakeasies

The Inquirer today has a story about Pennsylvania residents illegally crossing into New Jersey and Delaware to buy liquor. Because of the tax still levied on alcohol from the 1936 Johnstown flood — which the state is apparently still devastated from — alcohol is much more expensive in the Keystone State than elsewhere.

Technically, it’s illegal to buy liquor in a neighboring state and bring it back into Pennsylvania. But how likely are you to be caught? Well, only 11 people were cited in Pennsylvania last year for illegally importing alcohol.

The manager of Total Wine and More, in Delaware, says he’s just making a living. But, hey, he doesn’t sell to Al Capone and his cronies!

“We don’t knowingly sell to speakeasies and restaurants because we don’t condone that at all,” Grunes said.

The state won’t ever repeal the law because it brings in a million billion dollars a year, which the state legislators then spend on themselves.

Crossing the border with booze not exactly a high-profile crime [Inquirer]
[Image of L.C. Bee]

Ed Rendell: Cheat On Your Taxes

Ed Rendell was on a radio show out in Pittsburgh when the matter of Allegheny County’s new liquor by the drink tax came up. Apparently, we have this in Philadelphia, too, but Rendell told everyone not to worry because it just won’t be collected anyway.

(Rendell): “We don’t quite enforce in the neighborhood taverns as well as we do in the big hotels and restaurants.”

(Host): “You look the other way, sir?”
(Rendell): “Umm, you can say that.”

Everyone had a good laugh about the governor’s plan to let people cheat on their taxes out in Pittsburgh, except for the Nutter administration, which had to remind people not to cheat. The governor apparently meant that they just go after the delinquent hotels and restaurants first, because they have larger tax bills.

In other news, people didn’t know how to cheat on their taxes until the governor told them to, so Pennsylvania is full of morons. Maybe if we all cheat on our state taxes enough they’ll reduce the size of the legislature!

Rendell Tweaks Remarks About City’s Drink Tax [KYW 1060]