LCB vintage tastes sour

An agency whose very existence is a cause for widespread puzzlement would normally avoid drawing attention to itself. So it's a measure of the Pennsylvania Liquor Control Board's deep-seated dysfunction that it can't seem to keep out of trouble.

In an internal memo revealed by the Associated Press, the LCB's finance director proposed hiking the agency's across-the-board markup on all wine and liquor for the first time in 20 years. The proposal would have raised the markup - the premium charged to State Store customers on top of the LCB's wholesale price, in addition to hefty taxes - from 30 to 35 percent.

Why? Certainly not because the LCB is providing new or better services. The memo blamed employee benefits and deferred technology upgrades. More likely it's because the LCB's expenses are rising while its income is shrinking.

LCB Chairman Joseph "Skip" Brion downplayed the likelihood of the hike soon after the memo became public. But the proposal stands as a sobering reminder that state liquor control is an unnecessarily expensive prospect - and that the public will ultimately foot the bill.

A clue to cost pressures facing the LCB that didn't make that memo may be found in Ethics Commission penalties recently levied against a former LCB employee. It was the fourth case this year of a former LCB official agreeing to pay fines for having accepted, in violation of ethics rules, golf outings, travel, meals, and more from the wine and liquor sellers the agency does business with. Such cozy relations help explain why the LCB doesn't seem to be reaping all the pricing benefits that should redound to the second-largest purchaser of wine and spirits in the world.

Despite rising expenses and the evident camaraderie between the LCB and its vendors, many Pennsylvanians still can't get what they want from the State Stores, and they're legally prohibited from getting it anywhere else. Hence the case of Arthur Goldman, the Main Line lawyer recently sentenced to community service and probation for quietly selling fine wine that the government isn't. State police busted Goldman by infiltrating his e-mail list and conducting undercover buys. Now they're threatening to dispose of thousands of bottles of his good stuff - at least $125,000 worth - like so much bathtub gin.

That prospect prompted one pained oenophile to tell The Inquirer's Tricia L. Nadolny, "It's not like we're talking about cocaine or heroin here. We're talking about a Napa Valley Cabernet Sauvignon from the 2012 vintage." As long as our policymakers fail to discern the difference, that's not all that is being poured down the drain.