How Philadelphia Plans to Shut down Convenience Stores that Sell Beer

If you’re Councilwoman Bass, you’ll put them out of business by making them easier to rob.

A controversial bill under consideration would require liquor stores to pull down the bulletproof glass they currently use to protect their clerks. After all, liquor stores are often prime targets for robbery. The glass keeps clerks safe, at least to some extent, and now it needs to come down.

These store owners tend to be Korean, so the accusation is being thrown around that the motivation for this is straight up racism. These business technically operate as restaurants. Convenience stores can’t sell alcoholic beverages in Pennsylvania, so what some stores do is to have a limited menu of items, apply for a liquor license as a restaurant, and then sell takeout, which restaurants are allowed to do.

I covered this issue some time ago, about the double standards at work here, and was very proud to have the current Mayor of Philadelphia tell me to go eff myself. You sell 7% ABV beers to white hipsters and no one cares. Do the same in minority neighborhoods and the world is coming to and end and we must stop it. Hard for me to agree there’s no racial issues at work here. I get the concern over social problems, but last I checked, dealing drugs, public intoxication, and public urination (all mentioned by Councilwoman Bass) were all crimes. Maybe address those issues, rather than targeting people who run the stores and ultimately their customers, many of whom probably just want a beer at the end of a hard day like we all do.

It is absolutely beyond the pale that this Councilwoman would see people get shot and stabbed. She should be ashamed for even proposing this. I would argue that armor are arms, and a bill like this should be properly found unconstitutional under the 2nd Amendment.

13 thoughts on “How Philadelphia Plans to Shut down Convenience Stores that Sell Beer”

  1. at least she makes it perfectly clear she considers alcohol more important than lives.

    in some vague sense we all do, of course, and have ever since prohibition; ethanol DOES kill an awful lot of people, and we don’t really do much to stop it from killing, if only on the (understandable, and not wrong) principle that “we tried that and it just got worse”. but most of us do try not to help it along, either.

  2. Amend the proposal to require all facilities to remove any protective barriers, including the government. Make them take down the metal detectors, concrete barriers, etc.

    Good for the goose, etc.

  3. That’s becoming the current ‘thing’. Fr. ‘Snuffy’ Phleger is crying the same tune in Chicago after some BANKS put up bullet proof glass.

    1. Well, that actually makes sense. After all bulletproof glass prevents underprivileged thugs from making a living off those evil banks.

  4. I would argue that armor should be afforded the highest protection under the Second Amendment, and the right to own and employ it should never, ever be revocable for any reason whatsoever. Because it isn’t offensive in nature, but purely defensive, even felons (who still have the right of self-defense) should be able to own and use body armor. The only exception I might consider is to make it illegal to physically wear or employ it while in the actual commission of a violent felony. And even then, I would still be skeptical. It would have to be very narrowly tailored.

  5. Every time I think that North Carolina’s alcohol laws are convoluted, I look at places like Pennsylvania. Yes, you can only buy liquor in our ABC stores but you can buy beer and wine in any grocery or convenience store on any day including Sunday (except during church hours).

      1. As can be demonstrated by surveying the parking lot of a random liquor store in NJ near the Delaware River.

  6. OK, nobody in the links (that I could find) laid out a justification for pulling down the plexiglass. The implication is, of course, that this will make the stores easier to rob, so they’ll fold, but that’s not even a rational basis for a law.

    1. The justification is that it “hurts the dignity” of the “customers” by implying that they are dangerous or something. And that would be “racist.”

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