Is alcohol more expensive in Pa.?

by Doron Taussig

Published May. 31, 2011, 9:38 a.m. ET

A Harrisburg Patriot-News survey definitively concludes: Sometimes!

It seems that bulk buying enables the Pennsylvania Liquor Control Board to offer cheap products more cheaply, but our tax structure causes high-end products to be more expensive.

Price competitiveness is just one of several questions that will be at issue this summer when privatizing the state's liquor stores (probably) becomes a hot topic. There's also the question of choice, the question of service and the question of jobs.

We continue to think it's ridiculous that the state runs the liquor stores in Pennsylvania, but we also think there are legitimate questions to be asked about how we get from here (state-owned liquor stores) to there (private booze paradise). Whether or not taxpayers should own a booze monopoly, the fact is that we do, and if that asset is going to be dismantled and sold off it should be done for the widest possible benefit.

For review: Our LCB drinking game.