PLCB must allow direct shipping of special orders
The Pennsylvania Liquor Control Board must create a procedure so licensed importers and vendors can direct ship special orders of wine and spirits to licensees and individuals, as was required by state Act 39 of 2016 that updated liquor law, according to a Commonwealth Court ruling.
On Friday, Judge P. Kevin Brobson issued an opinion giving the PLCB an unspecified amount of time to create a procedure for such direct shipments, which he said the Legislature had required the agency to do by June 2017.
Under the special order program, which is not well known to most Pennsylvanians, licensed distributors can sell wines and spirits not offered by the PLCB to other licensees such as restaurants and retailers, as well as to individuals. But those orders must physically go to a PLCB store or service center to be scanned and then be picked up, and the PLCB charges a handling fee as well as taxes on each transaction. The customer pays the distributor, who pays the PLCB, which periodically pays the distributor.
When the state closed all the PLCB stores in March due to COVID-19, special order sales also were stopped, effectively putting some distributors out of business. Two of them, New York’s MFW Wine Co. and Philadelphia’s A6 Wine Co., with Philadelphia’s Bloomsday Cafe, sued the agency on April 16. On April 20, the PLCB announced that it would reopen some limited special order sales
— “only for retail licensees that also have a wine expanded permit” allowing them to sell wine for off-premises consumption — but not direct shipments.
Judge Brobson took that resumption of some special order sales into account in giving the agency time to create a procedure for direct shipments, writing, “The court is confident that PLCB has the resources and ingenuity to do so without unreasonable delay.”
PLCB Press Secretary Shawn M. Kelly said Friday afternoon, “We are reviewing the judge’s opinion and are not in a position to offer public comment at this time.”
MFW’s Jason M. Malumed on Friday reiterated the ruling, by eliminating PLCB handling fees, would lower prices, allow restaurants and other retailers with “wine expanded” permits to make money by selling up to four bottles of wine to go at a time, and allow customers to have special orders delivered to their homes. “So really, it is win-win-win for everyone.”
Shaler’s Kevin Perez runs Grapes to Glass, an Etnabased distributor that sells special order wines, including to “wine expanded” licensees such as Mary’s Vine in Rankin. He’s glad to be able to resume providing wines at all, so retailers like that have wine to sell, and believes that being able to deliver it directly to them would be a boon, especially during the COVID-19 crisis.
“It’s good for the situation we’re in right now,” says Mr. Perez, who noted more Pittsburgh-area restaurants have been getting the wine expanded licenses lately and that it will be good for them to be able to quickly receive special order wines to sell so they can stay in business. Of COVID-19 restrictions on customers dining in restaurants and the like, he said, “I think this is going to be going on for a while.” Meanwhile, he’s reserving judgment on special order direct delivery until he sees what the PLCB’s new rules might be. And, of course, the agency could appeal the ruling.
Special orders are a small but growing part of PLCB sales, accounting for $112.8 million of $2.5 billion in total sales (not counting taxes) in the 2018-19 fiscal year.