Coming closer to your neighborhood soon: beer sales in grocery stores.

The state has approved sales of the brew in five more suburban Pittsburgh Giant Eagle stores.

The Liquor Control Board voted unanimously yesterday to approve restaurant liquor license transfers to stores in Homestead, Monroeville, Pine, West Mifflin and West View. The supermarket chain tentatively plans to start offering six-packs at the stores starting Dec. 18.

Since it is Pennsylvania, it cannot be easy: the stores will have to have separate, restaurant-like spaces to hold the beer, with seating for 30 people, food preparation on the premises and dedicated check-out lines. The LCB will have to check the premises before beer sales get final approval.

Giant Eagle offered its first Pittsburgh-area beer sales at its new Settlers Ridge store in Robinson earlier this month and will start sales tomorrow at a site in South Strabane, Washington County. The chain has been selling beer for years in Ohio, where beer bottles mingle freely with other products in the store.

"Customers like the convenience," Giant Eagle spokesman Dick Roberts said. The sales "have been well-received on-premise and off."

At the stores, the rules for buying beer are similar to those at corner bars across the commonwealth: A customer can buy up to two beers to drink on the premises (but only with purchase of food) or take up to two six-packs to go. Every customer regardless of age gets carded -- the beer department cash registers will not work unless date of birth data is entered.

The stores plan to offer more than 200 kinds of beer, including imports and micro-brews. The LCB also approved a license yesterday for a Giant Eagle store in Harborcreek, Erie County.

Giant Eagle is following the trail blazed by the Wegman's supermarket chain, whose LCB licenses were approved by the state Commonwealth Court in February. The Northumberland County-based Weis supermarket chain also has followed suit.

The Malt Beverage Distributors Association of Pennsylvania has challenged the grocery store sales in court, saying the LCB violated state law when it awarded Wegman's a restaurant license. Its case was accepted by the state Supreme Court, where arguments are expected in the spring.

Despite the separate spaces they must have to allow the sales, "Wegman's, Giant Eagle and Weis are selling beer from their aisles -- not from 'quote' cafes or restaurants," said the distributor association's executive secretary, Mary Lou Hogan.

The Pittsburgh-area stores plan to get beer sales rolling Dec. 18 to have them available "around the holidays," Mr. Roberts said, but he said the date remains tentative.

The store locations are:

• Homestead, 420 East Waterfront Drive, The Waterfront

• Monroeville, 4010 Monroeville Blvd.

• Pine, 155 Towne Centre Drive

• West Mifflin, 9901 Mountain View Drive, Century Plaza

• West View, 1029 West View Park Drive

• Harborcreek, Erie County, 4500 Buffalo Road

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