Excellent news:
A federal judge ruled Tuesday that a Kentucky law prohibiting grocery and convenience stores from selling wine and distilled spirits is unconstitutional.
U.S. District Judge John G. Heyburn II of Louisville said the state law “violates the U.S. Constitution’s Equal Protection Clause in that it prohibits certain grocery stores, gas stations and others … from obtaining a license to sell package liquor and wine.”
Someone needs to cite this precedent in suit against the Pennsylvania Liquor Control Board like yesterday.
Also, too, does anyone think this prevents anyone from buying alcohol:
Grocery stores, however, may get a license to sell wine and liquor if they provide a separate entrance to that part of the store, where minors are not allowed to work. A store employee of legal age is required to conduct beer sales.
The part that I’ve always thought was the most stupid about setups like that is that an underage employee can’t even work the register! If they so much as touch a bottle of wine, our families and moral values are doomed, or something. All joking aside, I would imagine that kind of policy makes a grocery store less likely to hire someone underage, since they would be less useful, but I don’t know that for sure.
Back to my original point, hopefully this development can help get rid of PA’s alcohol monopoly. The fact that we still have an institution whose sole purpose is to make purchasing alcohol prohibitively difficult as a back door attempt at prohibition after repeal is astounding.
520 Chestnut 
While I don’t think State governments should be in the business of distributing alcohol, I don’t think I see a Fourteenth Amendment argument against Pennsylvania. If the State maintains a monopoly, it’s not really treating any business differently from another.
I haven’t put much thought into it, so I reserve the right to do a complete 180 with my opinion here, but at first glance it doesn’t seem to me that a Fourteenth Amendment argument against how a State decides to issue licenses seems appropriate. If the argument holds, doesn’t it suggest that anybody should be able to get any kind of license (without changing something significant about himself or his business, like no longer selling groceries)? Shouldn’t a seller of firearms also be able to get a license to sell liquor? While he’s at it, shouldn’t he be able to get a license to sell prescription drugs? That describes Wal-Mart, which sells guns, drugs, beer, and groceries, so the Fourteenth Amendment should be able to protect the owner of a local bar and allow him to sell guns, right?
Personally, I wouldn’t object to such an arrangement, I’m just not so sure the Fourteenth Amendment compels it.