Friday, December 26, 2003

By Bill Toland, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

Pennsylvania is in for one mean hangover.

Shoppers here are buying more liquor and, presuming they are not rushing home and dumping it down the sink, they are drinking more liquor, too.

Taking advantage of new liquor superstores, experimental Sunday hours and the Internet, buyers have helped propel the state's wine and spirits sales to record heights, according to the Pennsylvania Liquor Control Board.

From June 25 -- which begins the PLCB's sales year -- through the second week of December, sales are up by 8.5 percent over last year, or nearly $43 million.

So far this fiscal year, Pennsylvania's 634 liquor stores have collected $543.7 million. Last year, through the same period, the PLCB reported $501 million in sales.

Sales in Western Pennsylvania -- defined by the PLCB as the 29-county region west of Huntingdon County -- are lagging behind the rest of the state, but still are up 7 percent over last year's numbers, said PLCB spokeswoman Molly McGowan.

The state's newly renovated outlet stores and "premium collection" superstores generated an instant sales spike. The four outlets -- big liquor stores set up at state borders to grab out-of-state sales -- saw business nearly double from June, when they opened, through September.

"The initial sales really shot things up," McGowan said. Sales have dropped since September, but are still strong, she said, mainly because of the discount prices that can't be found at smaller stores.

The outlet store in Hermitage, near Sharon, saw its sales increase by 66 percent from June to Sept. 22. Another border store is set to open next year in Washington County in hopes of attracting business from West Virginia, according to the PLCB.

"Premium" superstores, including the new shop at the Cranberry Mall in Butler County and the Waterworks store near Aspinwall, also have seen increased sales. The superstores feature temperature-controlled wine rooms for pricier labels, computerized wine tutorials, and 150 varieties of spirits and liquors in sample-sized bottles.

Also, the increase can be attributed partly to the 61 liquor stores across the state that since February have been open on Sundays. Though initial Sunday sales were slow, numbers have risen as customers caught on to the new hours, and the average Sunday take now stands at $460,000.

Since Feb. 9, more than $20.3 million worth of liquor has been purchased on Sunday, including about $3.5 million at the eight Allegheny County stores with Sunday hours.

Overall, Sunday sales account for between 2 percent and 3 percent of total liquor receipts in the state.

Meanwhile, the PLCB's year-old Web site, www.pawineandspirits.com, is finally gaining a foothold.

And next summer, the PLCB expects to debut Western Pennsylvania's first one-stop liquor shop, to be housed in the Shop 'n Save supermarket in South Fayette.

Pennsylvania's rising liquor sales numbers reflect an overall national trend that suggests more people are turning to wine and spirits than beer. In the past two years, wine sales have increased by more than 5 percent annually, while beer sales have grown by less than 2 percent.

That may have to do with the maturation of the so-called "baby boomlet" -- kids of Baby Boomers -- who began to reach the legal drinking age in the mid-1990s and by now are approaching their 30s, the prime demographic target for wine and spirits marketers, according to industry journals.

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