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2007 to begin a new movement to reform outdated laws that restrict alcohol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.