Lcb

The Liquor Control Board recommended yesterday that some license fees for beer distributors, taverns and restaurants be boosted as much as 340 percent to pay for increases in the cost of liquor-law enforcement. In addition, the three-member board proposed reductions in wholesale discounts enjoyed by taverns and restaurants for purchasing liquor from the LCB. The proposals were immediately denounced by the association representing bar owners, which said that some businesses would be forced to shut down if the recommendations became law and that consumers would have to pay higher prices.

Liquor consumption is on the decline in Pennsylvania - as it is everywhere else in the United States - and yet State Store profits are on the rise. How can that be? A state Liquor Control Board spokesman said the profit rise is evidence that the state store system has become "more businesslike. " An LCB study, conducted between July 1983 and June 1988, indicated that liquor consumption had declined by 8.7 percent across the state and by 13.1 in Philadelphia (the state's highest-volume area)

Gov. Thornburgh apparently has no authority to prevent the Pennsylvania Liquor Control Board from padlocking all 705 state liquor stores at midnight on New Year's Eve, a key administration aide said yesterday. And that is just what the LCB intends to do unless Thornburgh drops his plan to turn the state's liquor monopoly over to private enterprise or, more likely, unless a state court blocks the Thornburgh divestiture plan later this month, a spokesman for the agency said. The LCB's threat appears to be the latest move in a game of political brinksmanship in the longstanding attempt by Thornburgh to undo the state's 53-year grip over the sale of liquor and wine in Pennsylvania.

It is a case of vintage revenge. Wine merchants in Delaware and South Jersey are now clearing shelf space for their old nemesis: Jonathan Newman, former chairman of the Pennsylvania Liquor Control Board. The "xChairman Selections," as one shop calls them, are the discounted wines that Newman's new company will introduce in Pennsylvania border states this month. Newman had risen to the unlikely status of folk hero among Pennsylvania wine lovers, partly because of his celebrated Chairman's Selection specials.

Pennsylvania liquor buyers are going to save $1.50 to $2.50 per bottle on certain brands of vodka and Scotch under a program announced yesterday by the Pennsylvania Liquor Control Board. The liquor board decided last week to purchase liquor directly from overseas suppliers, bypassing traditional importers who take a middleman's profit, and pass the savings on to consumers, according to LCB spokesman Robert D. Ford. He said the board voted 3-0 last week to authorize the purchases.

I am astounded! On the very day The Inquirer has front-page coverage of the Iran affair, the release of Eugene Hasenfus and the conviction of high Thornburgh allies for corruption involving hundreds of thousands of dollars, what do I see as the lead editorial? Another skewed opinion on the State Stores! Here are the state treasurer and the former head of the state Republican Party, Thornburgh cronies both, convicted of corruption, and you editorialize about a supposed threat by the Pennsylvania Liquor Control Board to close down operations because its lawyers have told it that it should obey the law unless directed otherwise by Commonwealth Court.

HOW WOULD YOU like to pay top dollar for bottom-shelf wine and drive twice as far to get it as you might do now? That's what former state Sen. Joe Conti says could happen if Gov. Corbett and Republican lawmakers privatize the sale of wine and liquor when the General Assembly reconvenes next month. "Virtually all price sectors will see a significant increase," Conti said of House Majority Leader Mike Turzai's plan to dismantle the Liquor Control Board. The agency runs about 600 state stores under a government monopoly dating back to the end of Prohibition.

Their hearing examiner has recommended against it, and opponents have besieged them with petitions, but members of the state Liquor Control Board are not saying how they will vote tomorrow on a controversial proposal for a mammoth sports bar in Society Hill. The three-member board is scheduled to decide whether to grant a liquor license to developers of the proposed Philadelphia Original Sports Bar, which would include a restaurant, at 200 Lombard St. The two-story facility would accommodate 1,000 patrons and have a basketball court, machines to record the speed of pitched baseballs, computer- simulated golf courses, shuffleboard, pool tables, dart boards and arcade games.

Fighting the forces that would drag Pennsylvania alcohol policy into the 20th century, the state Liquor Control Board has boasted of its unmatched ability to provide decent jobs while guarding against the reckless enjoyment of demon rum. Now it's in the uncomfortable position of advocating a course at direct odds with both those supposed social achievements: vodka in vending machines. The LCB's otherworldly wine kiosks - elaborate, expensive, Breathalyzer-equipped devices designed to facilitate the purchase of wine in supermarkets and Walmarts - have enjoyed little success since they debuted last year, only to break down right before Christmas.