Safer Campuses Equals No PLCB Wine Vending Machines

HARRISBURG, Pa., Sept. 28 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- The Independent State Store Union sent to each member of the legislature yesterday a letter charging that the Pennsylvania Liquor Control Board placement of a wine vending machine in a supermarket servicing the University of Pennsylvania campus only underscores the hypocrisy of the PLCB's underage drinking prevention program.  The union chides the PLCB on whether they intend to extend the amenity to every college campus in Pennsylvania.  The union claims the PLCB and industry are one.

The wine vending machine information was headlined in the September 22nd edition of the University of Pennsylvania's newspaper The Daily Pennsylvanian.

September 27, 2010

The Honorable James Casorio, Jr.

PA House of Representatives

House Box 202056

Harrisburg, Pennsylvania 17120

Dear Representative Casorio:

As reported by The Daily Pennsylvanian, the Pennsylvania Liquor Control Board has announced they are placing a wine vending machine for use by students over the age of twenty-one in the Fresh Grocer supermarket that serves the University of Pennsylvania community.  Published on the same day in the school newspaper is an article noting that Penn is the 16th most dangerous campus in the country.  Are we to assume the alcohol beverage industry represented by the PLCB will make the campus safer with the addition of a wine vending machine?

The day before Fresh Grocer received a permit to obtain a wine vending machine, the PLCB issued a press release touting the nearly $1 million in grant money it awarded to local communities and college/university campuses to fight underage and dangerous drinking among Pennsylvania's youth.  The placement of a wine vending machine at the University of Penn's Fresh Grocer makes a cynical joke of the PLCB/industry hypocritical alcohol education/prevention programs.

Will the students at Penn State and Pitt Universities, in addition to all the statewide community colleges, be offered the same campus amenity of their own wine vending machine?

Sincerely,

David Wanamaker, President

Michael Dusak, Vice-President

SOURCE Independent State Store Union