Rise up, beer drinkers of Pennsylvania: The State Police want to confiscate your Pliny the Younger. Thanks to Instapundit for the link.
Rise up, beer drinkers of Pennsylvania: The State Police want to confiscate your Pliny the Younger. Thanks to Instapundit for the link.
Anonsters says:
They’ll never take my Epistulae!
March 9, 2010, 6:18 pmkshankar says:
“La Torre said that the beer would be kept in a secured location, as evidence, until the case is resolved, probably in six to eight months.”
Well that will ruin much of the beer anyways. Barleywines age well, though.
Oh, and this is just absurd.
March 9, 2010, 6:26 pmneurodoc says:
(Maida) added: “It’s McCarthy-like. They swarm in here and confiscate this product because they don’t know what the product is.”
How is it “McCarthy-like”? Did anyone allege that these were Commie beers? Might the state police be seen as “fascists”? “Stupid” or some other non-political descriptor wouldn’t be more apt? (Was she thinking Charlie McCarthy rather than Joe McCarthy?)
March 9, 2010, 6:31 pmii says:
Having grown up in Pennsylvania, this sort of thing doesn’t surprise me. PA’s liquor laws are really strict, and the state government is inexplicably serious about enforcing them to the letter. It was only relatively recently that the Commonwealth repealed its state-wide Sunday blue law.
March 9, 2010, 6:48 pmDilan Esper says:
We can’t have that! J Aldridge started commenting about Bingham again!
March 9, 2010, 7:02 pmcommon_sense says:
Besides the silly reasons presented in the article (drunk driving enforcement? really?), does anyone know the reason for the registration? If the state has already collected the taxes and the beer is passing through a licensed distributor, what extra does the registration do? I could understand it if the board got to, I mean, had to sample each beer introduced into the state, but I don’t think that is what happens.
March 9, 2010, 7:26 pmCrunchy Frog says:
First registration, then confiscation!
March 9, 2010, 7:39 pmEC2 says:
I live in Philly and frequent one of the raided establishments. The unsurprising word on the street is that the complaint was called in by the owner of a competing establishment. Probably not the smartest move as the end result of the situation likely will be, apart from the State Police looking like a bunch of clowns, that the 3 bars in question get a boost in business because of all the media coverage of their “wide beer selections” (something that Philadelphians generally are fond of).
March 9, 2010, 7:42 pmkshankar says:
Common_sense:
The only reason I can think of is that it gives them overtime pay (if the raids were done after the end of their shifts) by them merely enforcing ridiculous laws.
March 9, 2010, 8:04 pmPersonFromPorlock says:
I wonder who Maida and Hartranft failed to pay off….
March 9, 2010, 8:11 pmSimon Jester says:
Pennsylvania treats all beers as guilty until proven innocent.
March 9, 2010, 8:34 pmRicardo says:
Several years ago, Pennsylvania state troopers were known to lurk in the parking lots of liquor stores located across the border in Delaware (where the stores are not state-run, the selection is much wider, and the taxes are much lower) looking for Pennsylvania license plates. They would then follow the person as he left back across the border to Pennsylvania and then pull him over and search the car looking for out-of-state alcohol, which is (or was, anyway) a crime to possess in Pennsylvania.
Another gem via Wikipedia: Pennsylvania prohibits the possession and consumption of non-alcoholic beer (< 0.5% alcohol by volume) by minors. It is treated the same as underage drinking. If you want more restrictive alcohol laws, you have to go to Dubai or other places in the Muslim world or South Asia.
March 9, 2010, 9:38 pmJohn Burgess says:
Ricardo: Virginia used to do that back when DC liquor prices were low. They’d sit on the VA side of the bridge waiting for the cars that were identified by (paid) informants standing around the liquor store parking lots. As VA taxes hadn’t been paid on the booze, it was confiscated, the driver was cited and assessed a fine. I suspect the booze showed up at police parties.
Dubai actually permits drinking. Sharjah and Ras Al-Khaimah, not so much. Both Kuwait and Saudi Arabia are strictly dry (in law), with a mandatory 7-year sentence for possession. Distribution is punished more harshly.
March 9, 2010, 10:21 pmkshankar says:
Ricardo:
I grew up in Pennsylvania, and when I was in high school (12th grade), I attempted to buy non-alcoholic beer at a grocery store (I was curious). I was carded. I have also been carded for Nyquil in PA.
March 9, 2010, 11:11 pmDG says:
Please tell me that this is revenue generation and not just stupidity.
March 9, 2010, 11:40 pmThe Volokh Conspiracy » Blog Archive » Pennsylvania State Police … | PA Blog says:
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March 10, 2010, 12:07 amRicardo says:
It’s stupidity. Taxes were already paid on all the beer. According to the article, the beer producers and distributors allegedly neglected to file some form with the Pennsylvania Liquor Control Board that would in turn authorize the sale of the beer within the state by licensed establishments. So a producer or distributor fails to file some form with the state and it is the bar selling it that gets raided and has its property seized. Note that this isn’t moonshine: the producers operate and sell legally and openly in other states and many appear to be established brands.
I should add, this is all merely alleged as the bar owners claim most of the seized beer was actually on PLCB’s approved list beforehand and that the police did not do a thorough job of cross-checking between the labels and PLCB’s approved list of beer brands and varieties.
March 10, 2010, 12:30 amjacksparrow1 says:
Hello,
March 10, 2010, 12:58 amIt’s really good post
Alcohol is very injurious for health
it’s really good action
i don’t like any type of alcohol
Thanks for sharing your knowledge
Jacks
Bruce Hayden says:
What it says to me is that PA has too many state troopers, and should try to balance its budget by firing some of them – esp. the high level ones who ordered this.
March 10, 2010, 1:17 amTim says:
Local 44 was my favorite bar when I was working at FIRE this past summer. How dare they raid it?!?!
March 10, 2010, 3:13 amSara says:
As George Washington can attest, there is a long history of dispute in the Commonwealth over taxes and alcohol.
March 10, 2010, 8:03 amhugh says:
This is an extremely poorly executed policy. The state has to pay the expenses of having the offending brew seized and stored. The state also loses the sales tax that would have been collected had the seized beer been sold.
Even worse, the bars were not the parties at fault; it was the responsibility of the brewer or the distributor to mske sure that the brew was registered and the $75 fee paid.
A better approach would be for the agency to send a single person to take an inventory of the alcoholic beverages at the bar or tavern. If any of the beverages are found not to be registered, the manufacturer/brewer and/or distributor should be fined. This way, the state gets the sales tax revenue, the state has lower enforcement costs, and the liability is imposed on the parties who are actually at fault.
March 10, 2010, 11:21 am