If the streets were paved with gold, you could be sure someone in Pittsburgh would complain.
Protest signs on the South Side marked the first day of a two-year trial of Sunday liquor sales in Pennsylvania, a day that consumers greeted with joy. After all, Kaufmann's and Giant Eagle do business seven days a week. Why shouldn't stores that sell wine and liquor?
Everyone knows the answer to that. Pennsylvania is the captive of a neo-Prohibitionist mind-set that goes beyond enforcing the liquor laws to discouraging purchases through a state-store system built on inconvenience.
In addition to making it impossible for Pennsylvanians to buy wine for dinner in the same store where they purchase the rest of the meal, the liquor monopoly has closed state stores on Sundays and on every holiday in the liquor workers' contract.
That was one theme among the 30 or so protesters last Sunday -- state store employees saying they didn't want their outlets to offer a seventh day of service, ostensibly so they can spend more time with their families. What a fraud -- as if it meant they would be working seven days a week, as if they never go shopping themselves on a Sunday.
The protest against a test of Sunday hours in 61 of 630 state stores was organized by (surprise) the Independent State Store Union. Most employees in a tough economy welcome greater sales opportunities, but not these workers. Since they are part of a government monopoly their jobs are set. Still, their vocal opposition to consumer convenience was revealing.
As it turned out, 63 percent of the units sold statewide in the first day of the test were wine, not hard liquor.
There's one other thing we know. Sunday's antics prove that the customer is not the first priority of some state store workers and their union. This is a system they seek to control for their own benefit, not for the public's. That's why it's time for government to get out of the liquor business.
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