Trying to buy wine or liquor from the Pennsylvania Liquor Control Board’s online store these days is a lot like playing the lottery.

The odds are against you in being able to buy your favorite wine or spirits from the state’s website.

Gov. Tom Wolf closed the brick-and-mortar retail liquor stores on March 17 due to the coronavirus outbreak. Last week, the state resumed online sales but it’s been an exercise in frustration for many who want to buy booze.

With demand for these products is outstripping the PLCB’s ability to accept and process orders, the talk about privatizing all or a portion of the state-run liquor system is getting new life.

"I think it’s definitely on the table going forward at some point because people will be acutely aware of the inconvenience and by budget time, they’ll be acutely aware of the drop in revenue,” said House Majority Leader Bryan Cutler, R-Lancaster County, during a phone call with reporters on Tuesday.

Sen. Pat Stefano, a Republican from Fayette County, said from what he has seen so far, the PLCB’s online system has proven “inadequate at best.”

Then again, he added that system was never intended to handle the load being put upon it. However, he agrees with Cutler that it is exposing a weakness with the state’s liquor monopoly.

“It definitely creates more heat in the kitchen of privatization," Stefano said. He chairs the Senate Law and Justice Committee, where all the liquor bills start in the state Senate.

Unhappy consumers are frustrated with the lack of access to their favorite spirits in Pennsylvania if they can’t purchase it from a craft distillery that is permitted to operate. Some people have opted to cross state borders in droves to buy their liquor.

A.C. Nielsen data released on Tuesday shows Pennsylvania’s bordering states saw higher increases in distilled spirit sales than the nation average in the first full work after liquor stores closed. Ohio saw a 60% increase; West Virginia, a 32% increase; and Maryland, a 28% increase, all above the national average increase of 27%

For most PLCB employees, the closure of the liquor stores carries with it a personal hardship. About 4,550 of its 5,000 employees will be faced with using their accrued paid leave or go on unpaid leave, while still maintaining their health benefits, as of this Friday.

A petition on Change.org posted a week ago is calling on Gov. Tom Wolf to reopen the stores or privatize the system; it had drawn 375 signatures as of Wednesday afternoon and 752 as of Thursday morning. Others have shown their frustration on social media with comical gifs.

PLCB started selling liquor online and the site is already down due to high demand: pic.twitter.com/EH66AGKBIm — A.J (@AllysonJaquith) April 1, 2020

As of Tuesday, nearly 7,800 people successfully placed an order since online-only sales began on April 1 out of the 1.9 million people who tried, according to the PLCB. That translates to about 238 out of 239 people who visited the website and found the online store’s virtual door closed, with the sign saying: “Thank you for being a valued customer."

Efforts to get the state out of the booze business have come before and stalled over several decades going back as far as former Gov. Dick Thornburgh’s time in office back in the 1970s.

Four times, the House has passed privatization legislation shepherded by House Speaker Mike Turzai, R-Allegheny County, including once in 2013 and three times in 2015. The first attempt in 2015 made its way through both chambers and ended up receiving Wolf’s veto. The last attempt in 2015 became the compromise measure that Wolf signed that led to beer and wine sales in grocery and convenience stores, among other reforms.

‘Nowhere near meeting demand’

At the PLCB meeting on Wednesday, board Chairman Tim Holden commended the agency’s team for the job they have done in reopening its online sales operation.

But he admitted, “We will not be able to meet demands. We know that. We are working as hard as we can to fill as many orders as we can. We are increasing that fulfillment every day. But we are nowhere near meeting demand so we would ask that the public be patient [and] that we are working on it.”

Holden explained the board, in consultation with Gov. Tom Wolf, made the decision to close down the liquor stores out of concern for protecting employees and customers from COVID-19.

“We could not have the social interaction that would go on in a retail store and we wanted to practice social distancing and we felt we could not keep our stores open,” Holden said.

He indicated there is a plan for reopening the stores when the time is right. But Stefano said at this point, the governor will not consider it.

Currently, PLCB spokeswoman Elizabeth Brassell said the agency is picking and packing orders at three facilities, one each in Allegheny County, Montgomery County and Wilkes-Barre. That is two more than were ever used before.

In the first week since online sales reopened, those centers filled nearly a fifth of the 39,000 online orders that the PLCB processed in all of 2018-19, she said.

The agency is looking to expand its e-commerce operation by setting up other facilities to help fulfill orders in the coming weeks. But she added: “Each new fulfillment center requires a certain level of planning, set up, and preparation, so additional facilities may take some time to establish.”

Union: Privatization talk is ‘irresponsible'

The leader of the union that represents liquor store clerks shared the other facilities that the PLCB is looking to put into use are the approximate dozen service centers that liquor licensees, such as restaurants, bars, hotels and sports venues, use to fill their wine and liquor orders.

While consumers may be complaining about the level of service being provided, UFCW Local 1176 President Wendell Young IV praised the PLCB for its quick conversion to an online-only retail operation and being able to turn around orders in 24 to 48 hours. Fully online-only operations like Amazon and Chewy, as well as grocery stores, now can take up to a week to fulfill orders because of the high demand.

But the talk of privatizing the system right now is inappropriate, he said.

Young noted that so far, 231 members of the nearly 35,000 front-line workers in grocery stores, nursery homes, food processors, and pharmacies his union represents have contracted the virus. (The union represents workers in three states but most are in Pennsylvania.) A chief shop steward at a beef processing facility died from it last week.

“For people like Bryan Cutler or others who are going to use COVID-19 where it’s a very serious national crisis to advance their agenda to turn over a valuable state asset to the private sector is very irresponsible," Young said.

“I think by the time we get through this in weeks and month ahead, the PLCB is going to be back doing what it does and has done every year since its inception," Young said. "It has produced not only the safest way to deliver alcohol to our people in this state but also as an asset for all Pennsylvanians whether they drink or not and perform financially and perform better every year.”

Citizens become ‘bootleggers’

Nathan Benefield, vice president of the Harrisburg-based Commonwealth Foundation, said this crisis has laid bare the inconvenience and inadequacy of the state’s monopoly on liquor sales.

His organization, which promotes limited government, has long advocated for privatizing the liquor system.

“Virtually no one was satisfied with the government-run liquor monopoly before, but it’s shocking that 99.7 percent of visitors to PLCB’s new online sales site can’t buy anything, and our border states see a crisis from Pennsylvania crossing state lines,” Benefield said.

“Pennsylvania is turning regular citizens into bootleggers and making Prohibition look like the good old days," he said. "And at the same time, costing the state sales and tax revenue while adding to the long history of PLCB boondoggles. Ending our government liquor monopoly should be at the top of the recovery to-do list. It’s time to enact full privatization of the state store monopoly and finally allow competition.”

Turzai indicated that several privatization bills will be introduced soon including one that he and Rep. Tim O’Neal, R-Washington County, plan to sponsor that calls for privatizing both the wholesale and retail liquor system.

“I am quite sure there will be other proposals as well,” Turzai said. “Like wine and beer, other beverages should be sold in the private sector under the same responsible parameters that exist now. It has become abundantly clear we don’t need the state stores and we should allow purchases to occur in private sector stores that are regulated and taxed as we do with wine and beer.”

Stefano said at this point, Pennsylvania is not in a position to move into privatization now. However, he expects to be engaging in more conversations about making the sale of bottles of liquor part of the "R" license, giving grocery and convenience stores as well as restaurants, bars and taverns something they have been seeking.

That idea of spirit expansion already was a topic of conversation “but this just really makes things move a little quicker,” he said. “It’s just unfortunate that Pennsylvania is the only state in the country that has completely shut down its spirits stores.”

Chris Swonger, president and CEO of the Distilled Spirits Council of the United States, called on Wolf to seek a more creative solution that protects public health while allowing the liquor stores to open.

Swonger said other states have adopted such innovative approaches to reduce the risks to patrons and workers. He said other states are limiting the number of customers allowed in a liquor store at any given time; having store personnel retrieve customers products; encouraging credit card purchases; requiring employees to wear gloves; and allowing curbside pickup.

Aside from financial reasons and inconvenience, Stefano said the liquor store closure has created a major problem for those who are facing withdraw from the addiction of alcohol.

“We are seeing a huge uptick in recovery agencies and treatment agencies at a time they really shouldn’t be taking more people in but they have to,” he said.

Still, Rep. Ed Neilson, D-Philadelphia, said now is not the time to jump into a discussion of liquor privatization. He said the PLCB isn’t alone in going through financial hardships due to the coronavirus crisis. All of government is.

“I hope those that are in support of privatization are not looking at this as a means to fill budget holes and gaps that we have after this is all said and done,” he said. "That’s no way to move forward as a commonwealth.”

*This story has been updated to include comments from House Speaker Mike Turzai.

Jan Murphy may be reached at jmurphy@pennlive.com. Follow her on Twitter at @JanMurphy.

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