Picture yourself walking into Giant, and winding your way through the aisles. You know what you want in your mind.
It is Thursday night, and you are going to celebrate the coming of the weekend into the wee hours of Friday morning.
It has been a long week, and you deserve this. You studied, you worked, and you poor thing you are exhausted. Then you turn the corner, there it is. The target in your mind has become tangible reality.
It rests on the shelf next to the expensive bottles. You reach up, and grab your cheap box wine off the shelf because that is all your meager paycheck will allow.
Target acquired. Enjoy the weekend. I think every student in Shippensburg who enjoys having an alcoholic beverage (or 20) will agree that they have endured the annoying two- stop drive to get alcohol.
What I mean is one stop to the beer distributor, one stop to Wine and Spirits.
If you pay attention to the news, then you may have heard that Pennsylvania is working to privatize liquor.
The majority of the state wants this to happen, and to the majority of college students, the new alcoholic candy aisle will be located in Giant.
For those of you who do not know what the new bill will entail, here you go.
The bill started with Gov. Tom Corbett incorporating a proposal to privatize liquor into the state budget.
The bill has not been fully passed yet and it still needs to make its way through the state House of Representatives and the state senate. Regardless of these roadblocks, our governor has high hopes that the bill will pass, and we will see immediate changes starting by the end of June of this year.
If the bill passes an unlimited amount of grocery stores will now be able to sell beer, wine and liquor.
An unlimited amount of convenience stores will able to sell beer and wine, and if store owners receive a liquor license, liquor as well.
This could result in more than 1,200 new liquor licenses to be distributed to stores across the state, according to Fox 43.
Honestly, I think it will be a lot more than 1,200 licenses. Alcohol is a huge draw for businesses.
People love to relax and unwind after a hard day at work or school, and if people know they can stop by their local Sheetz to pick up a six-pack, they are going to.
It is convenient.
This convenience, however, is making some state government members nervous.
According to Penn Live online, Pennsylvania has the lowest alcohol morbidity rate in the country, and this staggering low rate, is concerning residents everywhere.
Washington Policy online blog writer Jason Mericer broke down the numbers for states who are, and who are not regulated by liquor privatization.
“Based on the share of Electoral College votes, monopoly liquor states account for only 157 out of 538 votes (270 are needed to win the presidency).
This means the vast majority of Americans live in states with private liquor sales.”
Pennsylvania could be described as a very conservative state, so it does not surprise me that it has taken this long to really consider privatizing liquor across the state.
I think this is something that should happen.
Whether some people like it or not, alcohol consumption is never going away.
At this point in the game ,all we can do it wait.
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