When did Pa. start allowing stores to sell beer? Back in the 80s when I did field service work, a co-worker and I were at a jobsite in the Philadelphia area. He was a heavy drinker, and stopped in a convenience store to pick up a 6 pack or two to bring back to his hotel room but was told that beer was only sold in bars. Ended up having to buy a case and it was warm.
It’s been a progression of small steps. You could always buy cold 6-packs to go from any bar and most restaurants, but I guess the first grocery store I remember carrying beer was Wegman’s back around 2005, or so. They were able to get a restaurant/tavern license, by setting up a small cafe in each grocery store. I think the laws have changed since then, allowing even grocery stores without a cafe to get the same type of license permitted to restaurants and taverns.
These licenses only allow up to 192 oz. (16x 12 oz. or 12x 16 oz.) take out per purchase, but they all allow you to check out with 192 oz., go drop it in your car, and come right back for more.
yeah, the old distributors were only allowed to sell full cases or half cases. But even back then, most had a refrigerator where you could buy cold cases, as that’s where they all stored their kegs. Your buddy must have just found an unusually bad distributor, or maybe just didn’t realize to look for the commercial chiller walk-in at the back of the store.
You gotta remember, PA was “The Quaker State”, and the Quakers were abstinent. They were followed by the anabaptists (Amish, Mennonite, Church of the Brethren), who also didn’t drink… at least publicly. So, we had our “Blue Laws” right up into the 2000’s, disallowing the sale of alcohol on Sundays, etc. I’d assume PA, at least the more-populated eastern half of it, is one of the “drier” states in the union. I’m doing my best to reverse that statistic, but I’m only one man.
Funny aside, my house was occupied by a particularly pious and well-known Mennonite family for about 150 years. But one of them, we think probably one of the son’s of the last generation of that family to live here, was a serious drinker. We found a pile of booze bottles that would fill a van, conveniently hidden in the woods about 300 feet from the house, which would date to that time. I’m guessing that boy’s parents thought he was just very dedicating to “going out to check on the cows”, every night.