Tuesday, September 30, 2003

By Tom Barnes, Post-Gazette Harrisburg Bureau Chief

HARRISBURG -- The head of the state store managers union yesterday blasted a move to locate state liquor stores inside privately owned supermarkets, saying it will expose children to "vodka and vitamins, whiskey and peanut butter and Captain Morgan [rum] and Captain Crunch."

Ed Cloonan, president of the Independent State Store Union, which represents 500 store managers, said the state Liquor Control Board should be renamed the "Liquor Promotional Board." He called for public hearings to be held before the LCB goes ahead with its "onslaught to sell more liquor in Pennsylvania."

The first liquor store is set to go inside a supermarket outside Philadelphia late this year. Other state stores will be inside supermarkets in the Pittsburgh and Harrisburg areas early in 2004, as soon as leases can be worked out.

"The PLCB is out of control," Cloonan said in a news release. "It's a captive of the alcohol beverage industry thirsting to push more of the drug alcohol."

Cloonan charged that putting liquor stores inside supermarkets will make liquor more available to underage youths and will be the first step toward privatization of liquor stores in Pennsylvania.

"Youth will be the greatest segment of the population affected by this effort to destroy the state store system," he said.

LCB spokesman Bill Epstein called Cloonan's remarks "totally ridiculous and convoluted." He said the stores-within-supermarkets concept is supported by the state store clerks union, Local 1776, which represents 1,500 clerks. Epstein said Cloonan had also opposed previous moves to make state stores more convenient to consumers, such as having some state stores open on Sundays and permitting sales by credit cards.

Epstein said the state stores inside markets will be completely separate physically from the grocery operations, with their own cash registers run by LCB clerks. There will be no "mixing" of liquor products with grocery items. He said store clerks will be careful to card anyone trying to buy alcohol and will not sell to minors.

"This is not a step toward privatization of the state liquor system," he said. "Mr. Cloonan's logic has taken a flight from reality. If the store clerks thought it was a move toward privatization, they would oppose having state stores within supermarkets, when in fact they support it."

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