Pennsylvania Has Made It Both Difficult and Dangerous to Buy Liquor

Last week, Canal's Discount Liquor Mart, a liquor store in New Jersey located near the Pennsylvania border, reopened after several days of self-enforced closure.

The store's owner had closed its doors because, like many New Jersey liquor stores along the state border, it had been flooded with customers in what Paul Santelle, executive director of the New Jersey Liquor Store Association, described to NJ.com as "a panic, a tsunami of business." 

The crush of customers, which the store's owner said reached more than 120 percent of the store's usual weekend capacity, didn't come from inside the state. Instead, it came from Pennsylvania, which closed all of its liquor stores on March 16. 

Pennsylvania, a "control state" in which every liquor store is operated by the state, has some of the most onerous rules governing alcohol sales in the nation.

The state's response during the COVID-19 pandemic provides both an unfortunate reminder of the folly of giving the state government a near-monopoly over liquor sales—and an object lesson in how the closure of businesses in the name of public health can backfire.-READ MORE