Daily Local News (West Chester, PA)
‘Free the six-pack’ law goes live in state
Starting this week, beer distributors will no longer be handcuffed to the case as the “free the sixpack” laws go live in Pennsylvania.
Single and six-pack sales have already popped up grocery stores around the commonwealth — Giant and Wegmans in Delaware County have their own beer and wine cut-outs already in store — but the distributors have had to stick to wholesale, which has been a detriment to their bottom line.
“It’s the supermarkets we’ve been worried about. They’re our competition,” said Matt Christ, co-owner of Domestic and Imported Beverage in Concord. “We’re excited, and our customers are happy that they can try a six-pack before they buy a case.”
Gov. Tom Wolf signed legislation back in November that allows beer distributors to sell six-packs and refillable growlers. Additionally, liquor sales will be permitted at 9 a.m. on Sundays, rather than 11 a.m.
“Creating and following this precedent will make the commonwealth more inviting for customers and businesses,” Wolf said in November. “It will address a long-standing failing of our liquor and alcohol system while we continue to work on customer satisfaction for all Pennsylvanians.”
Wolf has stopped short of full privatization of liquor stores, but has shown a desire to open up sales to private business.
Former Gov. Tom Corbett was enthusiastic about pushing forward liquor privatization. Some of the plans included easing of restrictions on the sale of six packs of beer, while the more aggressive measures called for replacing stateowned stores with twice as many private outlets.
Corbett referred Pennsylvania’s liquor laws to as a 75-year-old “antiqued sys tem” and his plan was to ease the state into offering the sale of retail and wholesale licenses, estimated to bring in $1 billion a year.
“Why don’t we have choice? Why don’t we have convenience like the other 48 states in the union?” Republican Corbett asked in 2013.
His Democratic successor, Wolf, vetoed legislation for liquor privatization in 2015 because he said it was “bad for consumers.”
“It makes bad business sense for the commonwealth and consumers to sell off an asset, especially before maximizing its value,” Wolf said.
However, Wolf said that he was open to making wine and beer available in more locations like supermarkets.
In June 2016, Wolf made good on his word, and for the first time since before prohibition Pennsylvanians were able to buy wine and beer at grocery stores, the first step in loosening the state’s hold on alcohol sales.
However, for beer distributor owners who after years of paying licenses that limited their sales felt as though the sudden inclusion of grocery stores to sell beer in more reasonable quantities was damaging to their business.
“We should have been allowed to do it first,” said Gene Weaver, manager of Manoa Beverage on West Chester Pike in Havertown. “How were we supposed to compete with their corporate deals?”
Weaver owned and operated the drive-thru beer distributor Manoa Beverage for over 18 years before last year selling it to Ashok Mehta, a retired Philadelphia school teacher. Weaver has stayed on as manager. When the six-pack laws go live, they’ll split the business into a walkin area for six-packs, with the drive-thru remaining for cases of beer.
Mehta said the changes will definitely help business.
“Before we were limited to wholesale, now we’ll be able to open up with smaller quantities,” Mehta said. “We’re excited for the new law.”
Weaver said that grocery stores are able to upcharge up to a 40 percent margin, something the smaller distributors cannot afford to do. He called the law allowing distributors to sell sixpacks “payback.”
“We want a fair playing field,” Weaver said. “It’ll help us stay in business, but there was a lot of key revenue lost.”
Nearby at Beer Guys in the Manoa Shopping Center in Havertown, owner Raj Mody said it will be a “welcomed change” to sell individual beers.
“People are going to be able to come in and mix and match,” Mody said. “They can try before they buy a case.”
For distributors, freeing the six-pack means a win for the little guy.
“People would just rather go to to the supermarket. It was eating into us,” Christ said. “We have a greater selection and now we can split cases up, we can compete.”
Mehta said it was hopefully the first of many changes to come.
“They should give us wine and whiskey next,” he said with a laugh.