Poll: Pennsylvania Voters Want Liquor Choice

The Commonwealth Foundation today released a new poll showing widespread support for ending the government-run monopoly over wine and liquor. The poll results and more information about proposals to privatize the liquor stores are availabe on CF’s issue-specific Web site, BoozeFacts.com. 

The poll found more than 3 out of 5 Pennsylvania voters support privatizing the 80-year-old state store system, with more than 41 percent strongly favoring the measure.  Support transcended political affiliation, gender, region, and union membership.  

Consumers who make purchases at the state stores most often favor change by more than 70 percent.  Despite vigorous union opposition from the United Food and Commercial Workers union, nearly 6 in 10 union households favor selling the system to private owners as well as the majority of union members themselves.

More than two-thirds of voters in Allegheny County and suburban Philadelphia favored ending government control of wine and liquor sales, the largest regional support in the poll.  Philadelphia County voters were in support of keeping the system, though a Pennsylvania Liquor Control Board survey found more than 45 percent of those area consumers broke the law to get what they wanted at privatized stores in other states.

A summary of the poll findings is below.