You can now buy beer and wine in grocery stores in PA.
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Oh, wow, really? When did that change?
Guess I haven’t been there since at least 2012.
Before it was bars for six packs/twelve packs (192 oz or less and not necessarily in “back rooms”), otherwise a beer distributor for cases.
In recent years, however, the rules have been relaxing. Less than a case of beer is allowed at distributors now, and I can get beer/wine at my local Giant Eagle (grocer). Liquor is still only available from state stores.
I, for one, have no problem getting alcohol separately. It is the sacred elixir and deserves respect. But I grew up in PA- seeing a wine aisle in a WalMart is like seeing porn at the library!
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Liquor is heavily regulated here. Much more expensive than in California. Nowadays, it’s a lot more inconvenient to buy liquor than weed. The OLCC are famously a bunch of pinched-faced, puritan, shit-heads, and I think it’s hilarious that hey have to license weed stores now, too.
I think most of these stores will go out of business soon. I can’t imagine that the market’s not supersaturated.
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Sooooo, it makes you really, really excited?
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So I guess there’s going to be… (puts on sunglasses) a shake-out.
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That wasn’t exactly where I was going with that, but lo, how could it be wrong when it feels so right!
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Same here – and I grew up in Ohio, where alcohol was only available at State Stores (closed on Sundays, and only one store per township max). Wine could be had at grocery stores “for cooking” – again, not on Sundays, for heaven’s sakes, the sin!
Who woulda thought that making alcohol difficult to obtain would make people want to obtain alcohol!
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So that’s why weed is winning, the start time is beer o’clock - 00:40:00…
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Oh, Texas isn’t going legal until forced to. Do you have any idea how much money our police make from the illegal drug trade here in Texas? The last thing the police want is legalized weed. That would seriously harm their criminal enterprises.
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I wonder how long that will last, though? Now that the good stuff is readily available, I’m noticing a reverse osmosis happening between San Diego and Tijuana. Don’t ask me how, I just know. 
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As long as they can make it last.
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Well, yeah. Because Texas.
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Michigan, Iowa and Wisconsin are all states I’ve lived in where you can pickup spirits, wine and beer at the grocery store.
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Oregon is a hoot.
Ashland (16 miles north of the California/Oregon border)
Population: 21,000
Weed shops: 4
Talent (5 miles north of Ashland)
Population: 6,500
Weed shops: 3
Phoenix (3 miles north of Talent)
Population: 5,000
Weed shops: 4
Medford (5 miles north of Phoenix)
Population: 78,000
Weed shops: 15
That’s 26 weed shops in the first 13 populated miles of Oregon along I-5.
Berkeley, California – population 122,000 – has TWO weed shops.
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CA has some weird stuff going on with the licensing of weed related businesses. They’re trying to do social justice stuff as part of it, at least in Oakland where I have a relative In The Biz who is not oppressed enough to apply. But the law actually gives a lot of power to local government, which of course leads to rampant corruption, because money.
Illinois also allows all types of booze in grocery and convenience stores (including gas stations). The last vestige of blue laws is that you can’t buy any booze on Sunday until noon. I don’t think you can get alcohol at a drive-up window, though, or least I’ve never noticed it if it’s available.
My favorite Michiganism: “party store.” Basically, a convenience store with a liquor license.
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Man, I wish the booze bodegas around here sold bait! I end up buying squid at the 99 Ranch chinese market.
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And with that picture… yes I will have a fifth of Evan Willams and 200 .20-06 rounds. Now that is a party!
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ZOMG! Story of my life! I want to get some booze, I can’t just walk down to the grocery store. I gotta drive 3-5 miles to the typically crowded liquor store. I went to the one over on 185th and it was closed on Mondays, so I had to drive to the one across from the new Walmart (which nobody patronizes because we loathes it yes we do!) It has a tiny parking lot with tiny spaces meaning you’ve got to wait a few minutes until someone pulls out (and some of these cats have apparently already been hitting the sauce at 3PM judging by the way they drive).
I know a liquor store very close to a light rail stop, but it’s a depressing affair with boarded windows and bars, and it’s surrounded by what looks like a series of chemical dependency halfway houses.
I’ve heard the OLCC is also despotic – there are a handful of families that own many of the liquor stores.
I’ve seen a bunch of places already boarded up. 5-10g of quality bud will last a weekend smoker half a year or more. And I’m sure there are a lot chronic potheads out there, but most people I know aren’t daily smokers.
After the 21st Amendment (which I only remember because of 21st Amendment Brewery) it was left to states to decide how they’d regulate liquor stores. Oregon and New Hampshire and handful of other states went a bit restrictive with it. I don’t think you can buy liquor on a Sunday in Massachusetts. In Illinois you can only buy liquor on a Sunday after 12 noon. California, you can buy liquor pretty much anywhere, even Trader Joe’s. New Mexico had drive up liquor windows when I lived there.
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