Lcb

HARRISBURG - Jobs are going unfilled. Morale is low. Even the chairman says he doesn't believe the state should be in the booze business. Yet the agency that runs Pennsylvania's liquor stores says that even in the face of Gov. Corbett's efforts to privatize its retail and wholesale operations, it is more productive than ever. Such was the testimony Monday by top officials at the Liquor Control Board budget hearing before the Senate Appropriations Committee. LCB brass said they have been turning more than $100 million a year in profit for the last several years - and kicking more than $80 million of that into the state's cash-strapped coffers.

Dawn M. Meling is the deputy director of public affairs of the Commonwealth Foundation In high school, I threw the javelin in track and field, badly wanting to be recruited by a college athletics program. My father would joke that he never had to worry about high school boys and unwanted attention toward me because I could out-bench press almost every guy in my school. And that was my attitude too - nothing to worry about. So it was rather eye-opening when I got to college, taking part in rape awareness programs, learning that my javelin-throwing skills were no match for a "roofie" or inconspicuous predator.

HARRISBURG - The state Ethics Commission has launched an inquiry into allegations that three top officials at the Liquor Control Board accepted gifts and favors last year from vendors and other businesses with an interest in liquor regulation. Ethics Commission officials have interviewed at least five employees of the LCB, most of them in the last week, about the allegations contained in a confidential report completed in March by the Inspector General's Office and forwarded to Corbett administration officials.

Lawyers on both sides of the controversy surrounding the muddled future of the state liquor system presented their cases yesterday to Commonwealth Court President Judge James C. Crumlish Jr., who promised to issue a ruling by Monday. In nearly two hours of testimony, six lawyers argued against an executive order, signed by Gov. Thornburgh on Dec. 1, which calls for the termination of the Liquor Control Board based on the state Sunset Review Act. The termination who be effective Jan. 1. The six attorneys represented state liquor store managers and clerks, Senate Democrats, the state AFL-CIO and the LCB itself, all of whom want Crumlish to thwart Thornburgh's efforts to dismantle the state liquor system.

The House Liquor Control Committee, for the second week in a row, failed to act yesterday on legislation that would extend the life of the state Liquor Control Board. Instead, the committee spent nearly three hours in another rancorous session, debating what, if any, changes should be made to the state-run liquor system, which is scheduled to go out of business June 30. Rep. Ralph Acosta (D., Phila.) led arguments against merely re-establishing the agency, charging that shoddy enforcement efforts by the LCB had allowed so-called nuisance bars to continue to operate, despite repeated complaints about drug dealing, prostitution and underage drinking on the premises.

Legislators from both parties said yesterday that a Commonwealth Court decision striking down Gov. Thornburgh's executive order to abolish the Liquor Control Board puts the fate of the liquor agency squarely in Gov.-elect Robert P. Casey's court. However, there was no agreement on what the political fallout from Monday's court decision is likely to be. "If I were Casey, I would be gnashing my teeth. There's no way he can avoid it now," said Sen. Richard A. Tilghman (R., Montgomery)

The House of Representatives handed Gov. Thornburgh an overwhelming setback yesterday in his battle to dismantle the state's grip over the sale of liquor and wine. The Democrat-controlled House voted 158-40 in favor of a resolution that would extend the life of the Pennsylvania Liquor Control Board for another decade, despite Thornburgh's threat during his final days in office to disband the LCB and put into motion a plan to allow private booze and wine sales. "I thought that (the size of the vote)

The Pennsylvania Liquor Control Board yesterday ordered the revocation of the liquor license of elan, the popular Center City club that last week changed its name to Polo Bay. The three-member LCB ordered the revocation based on three citations for sales to non-members at the private after-hours club, which is in the Warwick Hotel at 17th and Locust streets, said Robert Ford, LCB spokesman. He said he expects the club owners to appeal the revocation order to Common Pleas Court, which would keep the club open at least until a ruling is made.

Although written in a light vein, Inquirer staff writer Inga Saffron's Dec. 28 article about the Pennsylvania Liquor Control Board's border patrol revealed the utter nonsense that the LCB participates in to further its dubious mandate of controlling liquor and wine sales for the good of the state. It wastes money paying so-called enforcement agents to sit in parking lots at New Jersey liquor stores. These grown men watch for patrons with Pennsylvania license plates, note the amount of goods purchased, then chase them down and cite them for going to New Jersey to buy their favorite spirits.

Two Democrats and a Republican were sworn in yesterday as new members of the state Liquor Control Board, ending a string of major changes in the much- criticized agency. Gov. Casey, in his remarks, called the swearing in of James A. Goodman, Oliver L. Slinker and Robert P. Fohl the end of a "long and bitter debate and struggle" over the future of the LCB. The installation of the new board, which will meet today for the first time, caps years of arguments over what kind of liquor system the state should have.