Quote:
Originally Posted by DMcCunney
<grin>
What sort of regulations and tests exist is very much a local matter.
One likely selector will be whether liquor is a state monopoly. For instance, I grew up in Philadelphia, and Pennsylvania is a place where liquor is a state monopoly. You can only buy hard liquor in State Stores, and the selection will be those approved by the state. Liquor is also more expensive, with a variety of state excise taxes and surcharges in top of sales taxes. [SNIP]
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My favorite of the PA state surcharges is the 33% emergency tax originally levied to pay for cleaning up the Great Pittsburgh Flood of... wait for it...
1933. Not only are Pennsylvanians
still paying that "emergency" tax, it's levied on top of all the other federal and state liquor taxes... except, of course, for the state sales tax which is calculated as 1.06x(total-bill-after-all-other-taxes-have-been-applied). Some counties have additional sales tax increments above the state's 6%, so in Pittsburgh, for example, that's actually 1.07x.
Quote:
Originally Posted by DMcCunney
PA also still has vestiges of Puritan heritage, with Blue laws that specify what you may not do on Sunday. When I was a small child, I recall alcohol as being a not on Sunday thing, and it wasn't till I was a late teenager that it became legal to sell stuff like beer in supermarkets.
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Actually it's still illegal to sell beer in supermarkets. The local supermarkets have a legal hack around that, however. They open a "cafe" that serves prepared food and seats at least [however-many-people-required-by-law], so they can get a license to sell beer in their restaurant (both for consumption in the cafe portion of the store, and to go). To serve wine legally, they'd need more seats, and a larger menu, but would not be permitted to sell it to go.
And a very few—under 10 last I heard—supermarkets have a special "experimental" deal with the State Liquor Control Board allowing them to sell wine and beer from the supermarket. It's an experiment to make sure that nothing bad happens as a consequence. [Because the experience of the majority of the country outside PA couldn't possibly be relevant to what could happen in PA, of course!]
[BIG SNIP]