UFCW Runs Ad Claiming That Privatizing Pennsylvania Liquor Stores Will Kill People

UFCW

Via National Review comes this disgusting ad cut by the United Food and Commerical Workers of Pennsylvania Wine and Spirits Council, which is the public sector union that represents government liquor sellers. The ad is meant to dissuade lawmakers from privatizing liquor sales in Pennsylvania: 

For those who can't watch the video right now, here's the script:

Little girl: You'll never walk me down the aisle on my wedding day, or send me off to college. And you'll never even see me off to high school. A drunk driver took your life and changed mine forever. 

Female narrator: Thanks to current laws and the effectiveness of wine and spirit stores employees Pennsylvania has the lowest death rate associated with alcohol consumption in the nation. Tell your state senator to say no to liquor privatization. We don't want other children to lose their parents. 

As you can see on the Century Council's website, Pennsylvania doesn't appear to actually have "the lowest death rate associated with alcohol consumption." Though I think it's fair to say that it has some of the most tin-eared and shameless public sector employees in the nation. 

Comments

[Matrix]

How does having private liquor stoers over government run liquor stores cause a higher rate of drunk driving?

What, do government stores sell alcohol-free liquor and wine only?

[fried wylie]

Presumably the shoddy service, poor selection, limited hours and enhanced prices provide drunk drivers with the requisite motivation to quit drinking.

Privatization would fuck up that utopian outcome.

[Suthenboy]

Uh...not so utopian. Have a look. counting DD deaths per 100k they seem to be slightly above average.

[fried wylie]

Click Here for Sarcasmometer calibration...

[Cdr Lytton]

You SF'd the link...

[Matrix]

well, it would be even worse if these government run liquor stores were not out there standing between us and complete and utter bedlam on the roads.

[albo]

Actually, the PA liquor system was expressing set up to make acquiring booze more difficult, since we had a prohibitionist governor at the time.

[Mad Scientist]

Public employees spending tax dollars to persuade the public to give more money to public employees. It's as American as apple pie.

[fried wylie]

Now shutup while they renegotiate their union contract with the representative they paid to elect.

[np]

Previously it was dead kids. Now it's dead parents. But still for the childrenz.

[fried wylie]

Previously it was dead kids. Now it's dead parents. But still for the childrenz. Now with 100% more "For teh Childrenz"

[NeonCat]

Hell, they could add on to the ad by having a drunk (his liquor in a bag from a private, across state lines liquor store) shoot the little girl. That would give them Sandy Hook buy in as well.

[fried wylie]

Cut. Print. Rake in the moolah.

[Robert]

Couldn't he also have a swastika tattoo and yell "Allahu akbar!" before taking a swig and plugging her?

[Fist of Etiquette]

There was a state store on my newspaper route. The guy gave me liquor candy one year. It was the best Christmas ever.

[Agammamon]

Did he also invite you into the back room to watch wrestling videos?

[Spoonman.]

Pennsylvania: Rust Belt charm with a Jersey attitude.

[ChrisO]

And Alabama in the middle.

[some guy]

West Virginia in the middle. Might as well match both the people and the climate.

[LynchPin1477]

It goes a lot further west than the middle.

[Robert]

I thought it had Germany in the middle.

[albo]

Hey, southcentral PA is beautiful and prosperous, with smart people.

I will brooke no snide Carvillisms about my fair commonwealth.

The liquor store union is the most organized and nasty of the state's unions, and that includes Philly's thugs. They're in it for existential reasons--nobody will pay them $40K to run a register at private stores.

Anyway, privatization ain't happening. The Senate GOP majority down't like the House bill, and introduced their own very, very weak sauce that nobody likes.

[LynchPin1477]

What do you consider south central PA? Beautiful and prosperous is not how I would describe Harrisburg, or York, or Reading

[fried wylie]

Bedford ftw.

[LynchPin1477]

I grew up in Lancaster Co. I'm still very fond of it whenever I go home. The countryside is beautiful, and Lancaster City has some nice areas. But as soon as you cross the Susquehanna, it goes downhill pretty quickly.

[fried wylie]

it goes downhill pretty gently

/Appalachia

[albo]

Well, not the cities that have been ruined by one-party D rule. Lancaster's a nice town, though.

The burbs and the rural areas are great places to live and raise kids. Good economy, safe, great opportunities, nice outdoors.

[Max Power]

I grew up in rural York county. There's some nice looking countryside there.

[Spoonman.]

Don't get me wrong, I moved to Montgomery County 18 months ago from Texas and I am considering moving out to western Lehigh county. Pennsylvania is nice. But its politics are pretty nuts.

[albo]

Of course it is. we're designed that way

Hell, we have two former House Speakers in jail right now. And their portraits are still hanging hight and proud in the Capitol.

[Ted S.]

If they had any dignity, they would have shot themselves like Budd Dwyer.

Then again, here in New York we had an Assembly Speaker who said legislators earned less than minimum wage, which would have been true if they worked 32 hours a day, 365 days a year. More than 15 years later, he's still Speaker.

[Archduke Pantsfan]

nobody will pay them $40K to run a register at private stores.

A failure of capitalism!!!

[sloopyinca]

Pennsylvania: you got Pittsburgh over here and Philly over here and Arkansas in the middle.

[Suthenboy]

The effectiveness of government run store employees? WTF?

[Killazontherun]

Pardon me while I vomit.

[Hugh Akston]

You said you could protect me, Daddy. But where were you when I got raped? You were at a privately owned liquor store.

[fried wylie]

i lol'd.

[Episiarch]

There is a certain venality that is prevalent in union management that is hard to find anywhere else. They are a truly particular brand of scum. The kind of scum who can find a way to glorify collectivism, seniority, and parasitism.

[Hash Brown]

And now more of them are in government than anywhere else. The future looks just great.

[Warty]

I drive by a bunch of union scum halls every day. One of them has a big LCD billboard that they use to display various stupid messages, often written in questionable English, and almost always featuring a bizarre color scheme and/or hilariously amateurish wipes. The messages they're displaying right now?

UNIONS ARE GOOD FOR THE AMERICAN ECONOMY

WE ARE NOT THE BAD GUYS

If you have to say it...

[fried wylie]

Wait, you're saying my perpetual unfounded assertions fail to persuade you, and in fact, intensify your distrust of my position? The nerve...

[Mad Scientist]

If everyone is equal, then there's no reason not to dole out promotions and perks based on seniority. They're not "finding a way" so much as consistently following their idiotic world view.

[Invisible Finger]

There is a certain venality that is prevalent in union management that is hard to find anywhere else.

My favorite was driving on the near west side of Chicago in the 70's and early 80's. Everywhere you went were empty storefronts, vacant industrial buildings, and slums. And all the union halls.

[silent v]

The CC website is looking at Drunk Driving deaths. If you look at alcohol related deaths, from the CDC, Pennsylvania is in the top five or so.

[LynchPin1477]

This probably has more to do with the fact that so many people leave the state as soon as they are old enough to drive.

[Hash Brown]

The thing is, if they really wanted to cut down on drunk driving, they'd encourage the opening of more liquor stores and the closing of bars. The LCB regs have exactly the opposite effect.

[Invisible Finger]

Alcohol-related means there was an empty beer can within 50 yards of the fatal accident.

[Hash Brown]

As a PA resident, I've given up hoping for this to change. Here's why.

[LynchPin1477]

My friend owns a distributor and he realizes that he'll face stiffer competition if they relax the beer laws. So he is getting his foot in the door early by already offering more craft beers that places like Walmart are unlikely to stock. Just imagine how much better it would be for him to actually be able to sell six packs or (gasp!) individual bottles!

[albo]

We created a monster of special interests 80 years ago. Beer distributors, taverns, unions all over their own political power structures set up, and nobody wants to mess with them. What benefits beer distributors hurts taverns, and vice versa.

[Hash Brown]

Some of the Wegmans in PA are selling 6-packs. I think they've figured out a way to fit within the deli exception. Sadly, the closest Wegmans is about an hour away. But on the bright side, I'm close to the DE border.

[albo]

Wegman's got an eatery liquor license, because they have a separate area for beer with a separate register within their massive food court.

Very few groceries can do this, only gigantic Wegmans and Giant stores.

[Spoonman.]

And the one in Warminster is AWESOME, but sadly is pretty far away from where I live.

[albo]

I go to our Wegman's and I'm practically paralyzed with too many options. It's like an Amazon tribesman dropped into Times Square. So I only shop there occasionally for fear I may just buy everything.

[Hash Brown]

I'd move in there if they'd rent me an apartment.

[Spoonman.]

My sister had a place in Atlanta 10 stories above a Publix. The awesomeness of one of those above a Wegmans would almost make me be willing to share walls with another household.

[LynchPin1477]

I thought some grocery stores were able to start selling beer, though I'm not sure how the exceptions were carved out (shadily, no doubt). But maybe they are typically only allowed to sell cases? I just know that when I moved from PA to VA, a whole new world of beer possibilities opened up before me. It was glorious.

[albo]

Only groceries that have a sit-down restaurant in them, and only if they can acquire a license from someone, since just about every municipality has met their quota.

that gives them an E license, which means beer only, and only 2 six packs at a time. Case lots only at beer distributors, which are D or ID licensees.

*sarcasm on*

Jeez, it's not that hard!

[Killazontherun]

I got a hold of a couple of bottles of he new Ruin Ten by Stone. I can't wait to try it later in the week. I usually stay soberish until around Thursday evening.

[AlmightyJB]

Wow. You have to be a special kind of stupid to buy into those ads.

[Robert]

Why you no have link to commercial irrelevancy?

[PS]

It's for the children, drink.

[LynchPin1477]

Somebody should develop a drinking game around these ads.

[fried wylie]

"In other news, liquor store privatization ad drinking game causes rash of alcohol related deaths."

[fried wylie]

for those playing the Unintended Consequences drinking game, that's a Drink!

[wef]

lowest death rate associated with alcohol consumption in the nation

You challenge with drunk driving statistics - ah, but probably these slime are deceiving with "consumption" - which could be alcohol poisoning. Anyway, I suspect sleight of hand here.

[itsnotmeitsyou]

Asinine control freaks playing fast and loose with statistics to prove their unfounded assertion? I'm SHOCKED!

"There are three types of lies. Lies, damned lies, and statistics"

[sloopyinca]

I'm sorry, but I have to applaud the UFCW for this ad. It might be the greatest IRL trolling of an entire state's population of all time.

I can only imagine the balls on the guy that pitched this in their ad department. The only down side is there's nowhere to go from here, unless he Godwins it:

[camera zoomed on sobbing child]
Narrator: If Republicans get their way, liquor sales will be privatized in Pennsylvania. And at the normal rate of deaths due to alcohol consumption, the ratio of Pennsylvanians that die due to increased availability to alcohol will be worse than the Holocaust.
[camera zooms out from sobbing child to see her in line to enter gas chamber at Sobibor]
Narrator: Do you want to see this happen to our children? Urge your representative to vote no on liquor privatization. Pennsylvania's children deserve it.

[Max Power]

The PLCB runs ads on the radio all the time for the state stores. Why would you spend money on ads when you have a monopoly that was set up to discourage people from drinking?

[Hash Brown]

Tax revenue and bond proceeds are not gonna spend themselves, y'know!

[Bee Tagger]

Let me guess, they aren't including the increased driving accidents from more miles/time spent on the road finding one of the Wine & Spirits store.

[sloopyinca]

I know, right? Nothing increases the risk of drunk driving accidents more than the restriction on where, by whom and when the liquor can be sold.

[albo]

Bottom line is that privatization is a union vote, so all Ds in the general assembly will vote no.

Senate GOP has the majority by 2 votes, so they can lose one GOP senator. The votes aren't there.

House GOP has the majority by 9 votes, and passed a bill. But they want more than the Senate GOP can give. Too many senators in the southeast and some other urban areas need union support. The House wants the state stores gone and the state out of the wholesale part, too. The Senate won't do that.

The GOP governor just wants something to sign, since he's polling lower than the NSA at a libertarian meet-up.

[Invisible Finger]

UFCW Runs Ad Claiming That Privatizing Pennsylvania Liquor Stores Will Kill People

Sounds like a reason to hurry up the privatization already.

[creech]

You need to know this too: The State Police have a unit that runs "sting operations" against bars, restaurant and beer distributors trying to entice them to sell to minors. One guess which source of liquor they are forbidden to "sting?" At's right!