In early March, groups of state Bureau of Liquor Control Enforcement officers raided three Philadelphia bars after receiving a complaint that the bars were selling beer that had not been registered for sale in Pennsylvania.
As it turned out, much of the beer that was confiscated in the raids was, in fact, legal, but it did not match the brand names listed on the state’s database. And while the officials from the Pennsylvania Liquor Control Board struggled to clarify the list, outrage over the raids by armed agents grew to the point that the within a week, members of the state House Liquor Control Committee and the state Senate Law and Justice Committee, which oversees liquor law, had scheduled a joint hearing on the raids.
That hearing is on Tuesday in Harrisburg, and it has the potential to be more than a discussion on the raids themselves.
“I think we’re at a point where a number of things could come to a head very soon,” said Lew Bryson, a beer writer based in suburban Philadelphia and a critic of the state’s decades-old liquor laws. “The more I talk to people about the hearing, the more I think this may turn into something broader.”
As patrons ate lunch on March 4, armed, plainclothes agents simultaneously entered the three Philadelphia bars and began going through the stocks of beer. The agents, acting on an anonymous tip, compared the beers on hand to those that had been registered for sale in Pennsylvania, a process that includes paying an annual registration fee by the brewer.
“If they found a beer that wasn’t included on the database list, it was confiscated as contraband,” Bryson said. “The trouble was that the owners had legally purchased the beer from a number of wholesalers, so the BLCE raided one of those a few days later.”
All told, the agents seized four kegs and 317 bottles, a stash worth about $7,200, from the three bars, according to media reports.
Many of the bottles were properly registered, but not properly listed in the state’s database, and the police began returning stock to the bars a few days later.
“The most common example is Duvel,” Bryson said, referring to a Belgian ale. “It was listed as Duvel Beer, but the label said Duvel Belgian Golden Ale. And that difference made it contraband to the agents.”
Decriminalize beer!
- NORBL
n0rBbblll
|
- bill 4-15-2010 1:24 pm
As patrons ate lunch on March 4, armed, plainclothes agents simultaneously entered the three Philadelphia bars and began going through the stocks of beer. The agents, acting on an anonymous tip, compared the beers on hand to those that had been registered for sale in Pennsylvania, a process that includes paying an annual registration fee by the brewer.
“If they found a beer that wasn’t included on the database list, it was confiscated as contraband,” Bryson said. “The trouble was that the owners had legally purchased the beer from a number of wholesalers, so the BLCE raided one of those a few days later.”
All told, the agents seized four kegs and 317 bottles, a stash worth about $7,200, from the three bars, according to media reports.
Many of the bottles were properly registered, but not properly listed in the state’s database, and the police began returning stock to the bars a few days later.
“The most common example is Duvel,” Bryson said, referring to a Belgian ale. “It was listed as Duvel Beer, but the label said Duvel Belgian Golden Ale. And that difference made it contraband to the agents.”
- bill 4-15-2010 1:45 pm [add a comment]
Decriminalize beer! - NORBL
- mark 4-15-2010 2:34 pm [add a comment]
n0rBbblll
- bill 4-15-2010 3:08 pm [add a comment]