The Pennsylvania General Assembly directed the Pennsylvania Liquor Control Board to allow properly licensed companies to sell and deliver special orders directly to their customers without added handling fees.
The legislation required the PLCB to implement a procedure for processing special orders, but the PLCB took the position that implementing a special order processing procedure was discretionary and a legislative implementation darte of June 1, 2017, was merely advisory. “As a result, to date, the PLCB has not implemented an SO processing procedure, thereby preventing licensed importers and vendors from directly shipping SOs to their customers, and the PLCB continues to assess handling fees on all SOs,” the Commonwealth Court found.
With the outbreak of Covid-19, the PLCB announced the indefinite closure of PLCB stores and licensee service centers to reduce the spread to the disease and ordered all retail licensees, clubs, permittees and producers to stop selling food and alcohol until further notice.
More than two years ago–one May 1, 2020 — the Commonwealth Court ordered the PLCB to allow licensed vendors and importers o ship special orders directly to customers, and also to implement a procedure to process SO direct shipments.
Damages may amount to more than $100,000 and attorneys fees to be paid by the PLCB could be more than $300,000.
In a separate opinion, the Commonwealth Court rules that a restaurant could pursue a class-action lawsuit seeking the return of millions in illegal special-order fees the PLCB has collected over the past five years. PLCB claimed that as a state agency, it couldn’t be sued. But the court found that sovereign immunity didn’t apply because the agency’s failre to implemen the legislature’s order to allow direct shipping and stop collecting the fees was “dilatory and obdurate.”