PLCB to raise fees?

This link was posted on the Philadelphia Speaks Forum. It says the PLCB is raising fees due to "storage and handling costs" because they haven't looked at these costs for 17 years. (?) It says prices will go up .50 to $2 a bottle. The article lacks details and doesn't make much sense. Anyone know anything more about this?

http://kdka.com/local/Liquor.fee.increase.2.1877395.html

http://kdka.com/kdkainvestigators/Liquor.control.board.2.1879676.html

Haven't heard anymore yet, but the Conti interview says it all.

I wonder what the price per bottle increase will be once Conti figures out what it really costs to re-brand themselves into "Fine Wine & Good Spirits"?

Conti's business background may be somewhat limited. IBM raised th price of PC's back in the day & just drove the market for clones. American cars, consumer electronics, etc all found out the hard way what happens when you pass your inefficiency on to your customers.

It's probably not gong to feel like much of an increase in the end so nothing will happen but it would be a cool thing to watch if this increase was a tipping point in moving more people to circumvent the shipping restrictions. From the chatter here over the years it seems clear that no real monopoly exists if the consumer looks hard enough. The best thing would be for sales to drop $50-$75 million to offset the increase.

The reality is that this guy will be gonzo when either Onorato or Corbett takes over in Jan. Lucky for us we get western PA style patronage for 4 years. Who knows, Kevin Joyce is from Pgh & Onorato has probably noshed at the Carlton a few times....

Something weird here:

"For consumers, it depends. Retailers say the price of a bottle of your typical wine will jump $3 a bottle. The LCB says the increase will be closer to a dollar a bottle and some vendors will eat the fee increase and not raise prices to consumers at all."

Who the blazes are these "vendor"/"retailers"? Are they talking only about restaurants, or does this also affect beer? Cause otherwise the only "retailer"/"vendor" in Pennsylvania is the PLCB, and I'd expect them to know the answers, what with them being the only party to the whole thing.

If it's only restaurants, a $3/btl increase is a tiny drop in the vast sea that is unreasonable, extortionate markups.

I think the vendor/retailers would be brokers like:

The Charmer - Sunbelt Group
Majestic Wine & Spirits
Southern Wine & Spirits
Constellation Brands

These are some of the vendors who supply the PLCB.

Yeah, but that makes no sense: why would the PLCB decide to charge itself a fee? Or does this only apply to SLO?

Yeah, but that makes no sense: why would the PLCB decide to charge itself a fee? Or does this only apply to SLO?

The PLCB is not charging themselves, they are charging the consumers. They are raising their fees because more money needs to go into the pension system. So they originally were going to increase the fee $.45. But when they heard the "vendors" (who are the wineries, spirit companies, and brokers,) were going to go up $1.00 per bottle, they wanted more of the money so they increased it to $.75.

These vendors, from what I hear, can't hold their prices. So ultimately the customer is going to pay for this increase which will generate close to $1 million in revenue to the state. The SLO costs are actually going down.