Don't look now, but my fervent hope to see Pennsylvania exit the dark ages when it comes to the sale of alcohol is going nowhere fast.
That is not good news for Gov. Tom Corbett, who is clinging to hope that he can get his privatization plan passed as one of the few hallmarks of his troubled first term.
They held another hearing on the issue in a state Senate committee in Harrisburg yesterday. This time they were focusing on beer sales. You can read about it here.
The current proposal would loosen restrictions on beer distributors, which of course now are limited to selling beer by the case at a time when consumers increasingly are dabbling in craft brews and other specialty draughts that they would rather sample by the six-pack or even a single.
While the beer distributors like the idea of being able to expand their sales, they wonder if they'll have any sales at all if grocery stores and big-box outlets get the right to sell suds in the process.
It's hard to argue with them on that point.
Me? My feelings haven't changed a bit. The system needs to be blown up and turned over to private enterprise.
I want to go one place - preferably at the same time I'm doing my grocery shopping - and get what I need, whether a single brew, a six-pack, a case of beer, or a bottle of wine or vodka.
And don't tell me what is being done now in stores like Wegmans is progress. It's not. It's just as inconvenient, only you get to be inconvenienced in one place. If you haven't experienced it yet, when you buy beer in Wegmans, you have to do so in a separate section of the store, and you can't put the beer in your cart and then go about your other shopping. Instead you have to pay for it there, not at the checkout where you are paying for all your other groceries.
Swell.
I'm not going to hold my breath waiting for a solution from Harrisburg. If yesterday's hearing is any indication, they're nowhere near a solution.
Sorry, governor. And sorry for consumers as well.
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