Before I start ranting about these new wine kiosks, I want to make it known that I’m angry I had to read about this on Yahoo news and that no one from Pennsylvania told me about this. I’m also still angry at everyone in Rhode Island for not telling me fireworks were legalized. I can’t deliver my opinion if you don’t deliver the news.
Okay. Now that I’m done ridiculing you…. Pennsylvania will now be using id checking, face scanning, breathalizer testing Nazi boxes that will sell you wine in grocery stores. As the AP put it.. “some of the most Byzantine liquor laws in the nation” will now be using modern technology. For fucks sake, vending machine wine? How can I look like a wine asshole if I have to use a vending machine? Can’t read the labels. Don’t know if I’m getting a good Shiraz or a bad Cabernet Sauvingnon.
Individuals can buy wine and liquor for home consumption only in state-owned stores staffed by public employees. Private beer distributors sell cases and kegs only. Licensed corner stores, delis, bars and restaurants can sell beer to go, but only up to two six-packs per customer.
Numerous attempts at reform have been turned back by special interests intent on keeping their slice of the pie. So simply stocking Chianti and cabernet on supermarket shelves is not an option under the state’s post-Prohibition liquor laws.
The liquor board has tried to be more consumer-friendly in recent years, including opening 19 full-service state stores in supermarkets. The board touts the kiosks as another step toward modernization — “an added level of convenience in today’s busy society,” liquor board Chairman Patrick Stapleton said in a statement.
Who is buying this bullshit. It’s all politics and money. The politics all deal with money. So it’s all about money. This won’t get minors to stop buying wine (if they are currently buying wine it’s because YOUR state employees are not carding. Way to put people out of a job for a refrigerator that sells advertising and not alcohol). Also, anyone can ask me to go to one of these Nazi vending machines and buy them some crappy Australian wine. Will this make life “easier” for residents of Philadelphia to actually purchase alcohol? yes. But this is only a lateral move. It does not get rid of the post-Prohibition laws that plague the major cities and their alcohol consuming residents. And it doesn’t add to them either.
Seriously, I’m not sure I can move back to Philly until someone pisses on one of these machines.
