Last week we released a map that contained licensee information for Pennsylvania's 26,000 plus liquor licenses in addition to data from the Pennsylvania Liquor Control Board's Marketing Report.
Among the numerous provisions in HB790 and SB100, the bills created a series of enhanced permits that would allow beer distributors and importing distributors to sell wine and liquor. It would also allow restaurants, clubs and hotel liquor licensees to sell varying quantities of wine, liquor and beer depending upon the type of expanded permit they obtained.
The number of enhanced permits held by beer distributors and importing distributors within a county would also determine when the state's liquor stores could be closed within the county.
Once the number of enhanced permits issued to beer distributors and importing distributors double the number of Pennsylvania liquor stores within a county, the Pennsylvania Liquor Control Board is charged with closing state stores within six months after considering the term of the current lease, the availability of liquor to the public from private sellers, the pricing of liquor in the area, and the profitability of the Pennsylvania liquor store in question.
After combining the datasets we obtained, we noticed that some counties would never meet the required number of enhanced permits to trigger the closure of state liquor stores.
The Winners: 13 safe counties that wouldn't meet closure threshold.
Bradford, Bucks, Cameron, Centre, Chester, Clarion, Cumberland, Dauphin, Franklin, Monroe, Montgomery, Tioga and Venango.
There are 10 possibly safe counties. Adams, Allegheny, Bedford, Forest, Jefferson, McKean, Perry, Somerset, Warren and Wayne.
These counties have beer distributors that double the number of state liquor stores. When viewing the locations it's possible to conceive that some distributors would not opt to purchase an enhanced permit.
The remaining 44 counties could face closure of their state stores if the current proposal is passed into law and none of the other exemptions are triggered.
The following map displays information for each liquor licensee throughout the Commonwealth. Select a license category and county to view specific licenses by classification. Otherwise you can view all license categories by selecting a county. If you select a Distributor or Importing Distributor license type, all distributor licenses for that county will be displayed in order to aid comparison.
Restaurant licenses will be displayed in Red, Wine licenses are Purple, Beer Distributors are Green, and Special Occasion permits are Yellow. Remaining license types will be displayed in White.
Photo by Natalie Cake.