Lcb

THE RESTAURANTS and merchants of Rittenhouse Row are gathering again on Walnut Street this Saturday, and that means about 50,000 area residents and guests will be joining them for one of Center City's largest street fairs. The Rittenhouse Row Spring Festival will close Walnut from Broad to 19th streets (from noon until 5 p.m.) and feature food, fashion, entertainment and fun for children. It's big. It's crowded. It's fun. And this year there's a lot of new stuff. * Dunkin' Donuts will be giving out free iced coffee on the 1400 block of Walnut.

The sordid little story of the J & G Tavern in South Philadelphia carries with it a larger lesson concerning the Pennsylvania Liquor Control Board. It is this: The argument that the LCB is needed to control bars that become outrageously disruptive influences in their neighborhoods is a false one. The J & G case shows that the LCB can't control them - even when it does everything it can. We'll spare readers a reiteration of the tawdry details, recounted by neighbors, of the conduct connected with this bar, and merely give a partial list of the actions that have been taken by the LCB. The board has cited the bar at least 14 times since 1983 for violations of state laws.

With a legal deadline looming, officials of the state Liquor Control Board yesterday released a letter sent to all businesses regulated by the agency informing them that they would be "dry" in July if the LCB goes out of existence Wednesday. LCB spokesman Robert Ford said officials hoped the legislature would enact a pending bill extending the life of the agency and the State Store system before the deadline. Even with that hope, LCB officials felt compelled to notify about 21,500 businesses of their legal status if the agency expires, Ford said.

Six months after a gloomy financial forecast forced a series of cost- cutting moves, the state Liquor Control Board has shown a turnaround in profits, according to figures released this week. The LCB, which controls the wholesale and retail sale of all wine and liquor in Pennsylvania, reported that net income for a recent accounting period was nearly $900,000 ahead of a similar period a year ago. For the four-week period that ended March 7, the LCB showed net income of $837,370.

GIVING IN-HOUSE brands it never should have created prime selling locations in stores - an unfair edge over competing private brands - is another way that the Pennsylvania Liquor Control Board abuses its monopoly on wine and liquor sales. Documents obtained by the Trib via a state Right to Know Law request show the LCB's flagship in-house wine brand, TableLeaf, almost always gets the best sales positions on state-store floors and shelves. In 13 of TableLeaf's first 20 months on the market, it enjoyed one of the top five store spots for sales 17 times - more than any other brand.

From the Let's-Pat-Ourselves-on-the-Back Department, comes this: a report card on the state Liquor Control Board by, you guessed it, none other than the state Liquor Control Board. How did the student fare? You won't be surprised. "The results," says the report card's cover, "are impressive. " In what spokeswoman Donna Pinkham called a move to "clarify the misinformation that is out," the state-run liquor agency has drawn up a three-page brochure casting the LCB in rosy hues.

The state General Assembly remained deadlocked yesterday over the fate of the state Liquor Control Board, and Democratic Gov.-elect Robert P. Casey said he was not about to get in the middle. A bill that would extend the life of the LCB was passed, 158-40, by the Democrat-controlled House on Tuesday. But no action has been taken by the Senate, whose GOP leadership opposes an extension of the current system without changes. Leaders in the House and Senate reported late yesterday that there were no immediate prospects for a compromise on the future of the LCB, which could be forced to begin phasing out its operations in less than six weeks if no agreement is reached.

Gov. Casey said yesterday that he hoped a bipartisan compromise could end the dispute over the future of the state Liquor Control Board, which could be forced out of existence by June 30. Speaking at an impromptu news conference in the Capitol, Casey also said he would begin detailed work on a new state budget proposal this week. The governor, who took office last week, is scheduled to present a new budget package to the General Assembly on March 3. Casey said he was scheduled to begin a series of meetings today with Budget Secretary Michael M. Hershock.

Now that the Legislature has left town without resolving the fate of the Liquor Control Board, Gov. Thornburgh is going full speed ahead with his plan to divest. Opponents of Thornburgh's divestiture plan, including the union that represents state store clerks, predict the matter will end up in the courts with a legal battle over the constitutionality of the Sunset Review Act, the state law that allows the Legislature to terminate ineffective state agencies, boards and commissions.

It wasn't just the money or the E&D brandy Joe Brown wanted from the state liquor stores he robbed; he wanted revenge. Brown, 39, a construction worker, was denied a workman's compensation claim last year and was angry at the state. So, the prosecution said, Brown formed a robbery gang and targeted state stores. Yesterday, Brown, of Victoria Street near Elder, pleaded guilty to six of the 20 armed robberies he was accused of in exchange for an agreement with the district attorney to drop the other cases.

'Why would you ever vote for something that ludicrous?" State Rep. Mike Sturla's question last week was an excellent one if turned on its asker, who was engaged in a vigorous defense of Pennsylvania's deeply ludicrous wine and liquor monopoly. Government liquor control has been repudiated by more than 60 percent of Pennsylvanians, more than 70 percent of regular State Store customers, and exactly 96 percent of these United States. And yet, somehow, 100 percent of Sturla's fellow Democratic state representatives voted to perpetuate the state booze ministry.

HARRISBURG - Call it liquor privatization, makeover edition - and likely the first of many. Members of the state House Liquor Control committee made big changes Monday to Gov. Corbett's plan to privatize sales of wine and hard liquor, toning down the original proposal and making the path toward privatization more gradual. Although it is a scaled-back version of what the Republican governor envisioned, the House panel's approval of the measure - by a 14-10 vote, strictly on party lines - marked a win for proponents, who have pushed for decades to turn the state's 600-plus wine and spirits stores over to the private sector.

Gov. Corbett again made his case Wednesday for the privatization of liquor sales, saying "antiquated" laws hold Pennsylvania in a Prohibition-era mind-set. "Here in Pennsylvania we make it as hard as possible to buy a bottle of wine on a Sunday," said Corbett, speaking to the Delaware County Chamber of Commerce in Springfield and flanked by business leaders and educators. "We should listen to what the people want. " Corbett's pitch, to make 1,200 liquor licenses available to grocery stores, drugstores, and wholesalers, would lead to $1 billion in revenue, he said.

HARRISBURG - State Inspector General Kenya Mann Faulkner, whose investigations cast a critical eye on everything from welfare fraud to freebies for state liquor officials, is quitting the Corbett administration to become general counsel at the University of Cincinnati. "As inspector general, Kenya's mission was to ensure integrity, accountability, and confidence in public programs, employees, and contracts," Gov. Corbett said Monday in a statement announcing the move. "She has worked diligently to exceed that goal.

HARRISBURG - House Majority Leader Mike Turzai says he expected his chamber to vote this month on privatizing Pennsylvania's wine and spirits stores. Turzai (R., Allegheny) promised reporters at a news conference Tuesday that he would formally introduce legislation for Gov. Corbett's liquor privatization plan by the end of the day - and that's what he did. He said he expected a floor vote by March 31. "People recognize that it's time for change," said Turzai, the legislature's most vocal proponent of selling off Pennsylvania's 600-plus wine and spirits stores.

A lawsuit charging that Budweiser is being watered down, filed in federal court in Philadelphia last week, seemed to tap into the zeitgeist. Sure, Anheuser-Busch InBev denies the accusation, and it notes that almost half the beers bought in this country are still sold by the maker of the crisp and consistent, if somewhat aqueous, King of Beers. But with Americans increasingly choosing the more distinctive offerings of the nation's myriad microbrewers, the popularity of watery stuff has reached a nadir.

The Pennsylvania House and Senate Appropriations Committees met this week to address modernizing everyone's favorite monopoly, the state Liquor Control Board. Right there, you've got your first problem. Pennsylvania, the land time forgot, doesn't do change. The board was founded at the end of Prohibition to, as Gov. Gifford Pinchot declared, "discourage the purchase of alcoholic beverages by making it as inconvenient and expensive as possible," a promise we can agree it has made good on to this day. We have the "temporary" 18 percent Johnstown Flood Tax that dates to 1936.