It was bad enough when Pennsylvania got its first self-serve wine kiosks last year, with thousands of bottles available at the click of a button in grocery stores. But now, they've gone too far: the Pennsylvania Liquor Control Board is on the verge of approving a pilot program to sell hard liquor out of those wine vending kiosks. Why is the sixth borough at the cutting edge of alco-vending machine technology???
The machines require buyers to swipe their identification and breathe into a sensor to make sure they're old enough and sober enough to purchase alcohol. But while they're on the cusp of getting all sorts of liquor in their stores, we haven't even been able to get approval to sell wine in grocery stores! We came ever so close last year, when former Gov. David Paterson supported the move as a means to raise revenue for our depleted deficit, but it still didn't pass. Big Liquor is just too powerful a lobby in NYS! Instead, we just have to keep ourselves contented with desperate 4 a.m. trips to 7-Eleven to get our wine fix.
