Liquor Reform in Pennsylvania Still Brewing

Free My Beer campaign urges consumers to push for historic change in beer laws.

July 10, 2013

ALTOONA, PA – The Pennsylvania state fiscal year ended on June 30 with historic progress on liquor privatization and beer modernization. 

Sheetz notes in a press releases that following Governor Tom Corbett's passionate plea for meaningful reforms to Pennsylvania's arcane, Prohibition-era beer and liquor sale restrictions, the Pennsylvania House of Representatives passed significant reforms that also included the elimination of the prohibition on the sale of beer where gas is also dispensed (the beer-gas prohibition). Never before, since Prohibition ended, has any chamber of the General Assembly passed such a proposal. And, just last week, the Pennsylvania Senate achieved yet another historic milestone after it passed a liquor privatization and beer modernization amendment that included the beer-gas fix.

The Free My Beer campaign reached out to tens of thousands of adult residents with a message that was heard all across Pennsylvania. Several grocery and convenience retailers, including Sheetz, banded together in 2007 to begin a new movement to reform outdated laws that restrict alcohol sales. Most recently, the advocacy website urged people to send emails to their legislators asking them to support the convenient sale of beer in grocery and convenience stores, and to remove the law that prohibits beer from being sold at places that dispense gasoline.

More than 30,000 people took that call to action, overflowing the in-boxes of representatives and senators. 

As the current session of the General Assembly came to a close with no resolution on this issue, the Free My Beer team issued this letter of thanks to leadership in Harrisburg and its fans online.

While a majority of senators indicated support to eliminate the beer-gas prohibition, the Senate has not yet passed a bill that achieves this outcome.

The Free My Beer campaign is urging state senators to eliminate the gas-beer prohibition and continues to gather support for changes in the law before the General Assembly returns in mid-September.

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