Local liquor stores to remain closed on Sundays
Like many folks, Gus Brickner and Bob Conchilla would rather spend their Sundays at home with their families instead of working. They were happy to hear, but were waiting for official notification from their boss at the Pennsylvania Liquor Control Board, that the Wine and Spirits Shoppe in Uniontown where they work is not among the 60 that will open on Sundays starting in February.
“Sundays are best time for families,” Conchilla said. “I think people need to be with their families more.”
None of the LCB’s eight Wine and Spirits Shoppes in Fayette County including the one on West Fayette Street, where Conchilla has worked for 161/2 years, will be open on Sundays beginning Feb. 9.
No liquor stores in Greene or Somerset counties will open Sundays, while Washington and Westmoreland counties will have one each. Eight stores in Allegheny County are slated to open Sundays.
The list of stores that will open from noon to 5 p.m. on Sundays for a two-year trial was released Tuesday by the LCB.
Legislation signed Monday by Gov. Schweiker allows the LCB to open up to 10 percent, or 63, of its 836 stores during the pilot program.
“We looked at a lot of things including the level of sales, demographics, border stores, Saturday sales and tried to determine which stores would be the most successful in the two-year trial period,” LCB spokesperson Donna Pinkham said.
She said most of the selected stores serve areas with high populations, but stores in areas that border states that already allow Sunday liquor sales were also considered. Locally, West Virginia and Maryland allow sales of some alcoholic beverages on Sundays.
Brickner, who has been manager the West Fayette Street store for a month since he was transferred from a store in Monessen, said Sundays are the only days when he can spend the entire day with his wife and son.
He said his wife works Monday through Friday from 9 to 5 and he is off work Sundays and either Tuesday or Wednesday. Sunday is the only day everybody is home.
Brickner said he doesn’t want to work on Sundays and estimated that three-quarters of his customers didn’t want the store to open Sundays.
Customers believe that the current business hours, which are spread over six days, provide ample opportunity to buy liquor, he said.
However, some customers liked the idea of having state stores open seven days a week.
“Some said ‘oh great, we can get something for the Steelers game,'” Brickner said.
Conchilla said he enjoys spending Sundays with his family, which includes two grandchildren, and doesn’t like to see anybody work on weekends. He said some services are needed on weekends, but does not believe most businesses should open Sundays.
Conchilla is among the 750 members of the Canonsburg-based United Food and Commercial Workers Union Local 23, which opposed the Sunday proposal.
“I’m opposed to people working in Sundays, no matter what,” Local 23 President Ron Kean told the Associated Press. “I think they should be home with their families and I don’t know why this legislation was rushed through.”
The local representing the other 1,800 liquor store clerks in the eastern half of the state supported Sunday openings.
“We feel very strongly, generally speaking, that we should do everything in our power to make (liquor stores) consumer friendly,” Wendell W. Young III, president of the Philadelphia-based UFCW Local 1776, said in an Associated Press story. “We feel it’s going to benefit the public, there’s a benefit to the state and to our members, giving them a chance to get more hours.”
The AP also reported that Pennsylvania’s liquor stores generated $85.8 million in profits out of $1.2 million is gross sales in fiscal 2002, and that the state is the largest buyer of alcoholic beverages in the country.
Pinkham said the legislation gives the LCB discretion to remove some stores from the program and add others are at the end of the two-year trial. She said a few slots were reserved for Wine and Spirits Superstores, which have not yet opened.
There are 26 superstores, which are larger and carry more products that regular stores, that are already open.
Pinkham said profits will determine which stores will continue Sunday operations, noting that the legislature will receive annual reports on the additional revenue generated by Sunday sales from the LCB.
The enabling legislation prohibits state stores from opening on Easter and Christmas when it falls on a Sunday. In most years, there will be 51 additional days of sales.