The Post-Gazette series on the state liquor store system continued today with some vinegar-tasting news, the bouquet of stinky politics and and the bitter aftertaste of tax avoidance.

Among today's disclosures:

• A North Philly state store that was subject to community protests in 2004 is in a strip mall owned by a development company headed by Jay Vederman, son of a top aide to Gov. Ed Rendell when Fast Eddie was the city's mayor. The 10-year lease will eventually will pay out more than $100,000 annually. The more profitable store it replaced was leased for about $30,000 a year.
• 
  
  
• Another store with dwindling profits is in Doylestown, Bucks County, home of Joe Conti, the new liquor board CEO. In the past three years, the store's profits have decreased from $48,708 to $16,255. Yet, the board renewed its lease last fall for another year even though a highly profitable Premium Collection store (seventh-most profitable in the state) is less than a mile away.
  
  Conti and Pennsylvania Liquor Control Board Chairman Patrick J. Stapleton said the downtown state store is a convenience for diners to purchase wine before they eat bring-your-own-bottle restaurants, but its performance is one reason they limited the lease renewal to one year.
• 
  
  
• Stapleton is a busy man. He is currently paid $68,770 as chairman. He also reported in his 2007 statement of financial interests more than $1 million in salary in 2006 from two law firms - $945,000 as a partner at Weber, Gallagher, Simpson, Stapleton, Fires & Newby in Philadelphia, $105,000 from his law practice in Indiana, Pa. and $2,500 as a director for Enterprise Bank. The year before, he reported a total of $262,000 from the three positions.
• 
  
  
• Despite the monopoly on wine and liquor sales, nearly 10 percent of the state's 623 stores last fiscal year showed a loss. The biggest loser was at Liberty Avenue between Ninth and 10th avenues in Downtown Pittsburgh, where expenses exceeded sales by more than $85,000.
• 
  
  
• An estimated 200 to 300 Pittsburgh restauranteurs and bar owners have found a way out of paying a 1 percent Allegheny County tax on all wine and spirit sales by going to store 6316. Located in the back parking lot of an all-but-abandoned shopping mall in Washington County, the store is one of a few across the state which sells discounted liquor in bulk.

Labels: Citizens Voice, Ed Rendell, Joe Conti, liquor, Patrick J. Stapleton, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, PLCB, Post-Gazette, wine

The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette began a laudable series today whose aim is nothing less than ending the state's monopoly on booze sales by privatizing its stores.

Among the newspaper's disclosures so far:

• The Pennsylvania Liquor Control Board generated nearly half a billion dollars profit last year for state coffers on $1.69 billion in sales. Much of the revenue, however, went to pay the more than 3,600 full- or part-time state store clerks and managers, plus more than 400 people at its Harrisburg headquarters.
• 
  
  
• The average annual salary of a Pennsylvania state store clerk is $30,000, plus health benefits and a pension. A phone survey of privately owned liquor stores in neighboring Ohio suggests that clerks there typically earn half what Pennsylvania clerks make, with no benefits.
• 
  
  
• It's grossly, maybe even purposely, inefficient. In the state-store distribution system, all wine and spirits must go through one of three warehouses, in Pittsburgh, Scranton and Philadelphia. Although a state store is just a few miles from some Erie County wineries, the winery has to truck its wares all the way to Pittsburgh when the local store needs to be restocked.
• 
  
  
• Despite a 2005 U.S. Supreme Court decision that was supposed to put in-state and out-of-state wineries on equal footing for shipping wines directly to customers, Pennsylvania is still listed as a "no-ship" state on the California Wine Institute's Web page.
• 
  
  
• A $10 bottle of wine costs about $18 after markups, charges and state taxes get tacked on.

Labels: Ed Rendell, liquor, PLCB, wine