Nearly all Pennsylvania liquor stores to open for curbside pickup

The Pennsylvania Liquor Control Board will open most liquor stores across the state for call-in orders and curbside pickup service starting Monday.

PLCB Chairman Tim Holden said Friday that 565 of the state’s nearly 600 Fine Wine & Good Spirits stores would take a limited number of orders on a first-call, first-served basis. The stores open at 9 a.m. Monday through Saturday and will schedule appointments for pickup from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. Holden said some stores will operate on more limited days and hours.

“We acknowledge that Pennsylvanians are frustrated with busy signals and want broader access to wine and spirits, so after learning from our experiences this past week, we’ve made improvements to process orders faster, expand the hours we take orders by phone and be more flexible in scheduling pickups, even the same day, if pickup appointments are available,” he said in a statement.

Customers must call a specific store to place an order. Orders will be limited to a maximum of six bottles per day, and credit cards are the only accepted form of payment.

See the release below or click here for a list of stores by county and their phone numbers.

The stores will accept the first 50 to 100 orders each day until the PLCB can expand its capacity for taking orders.

Gov. Tom Wolf ordered the stores shuttered March 17 to help stop the spread of corona­virus. Online-only sales started April 1. The PLCB was widely criticized for lengthy delays that prevented potential customers from logging in and placing an order.

The state opened 176 stores Monday under the curbside pickup program, but residents complained about not being able to reach the stores because of near-continuous busy signals.

Curbside liquor sales have since increased steadily.

About 6,000 curbside orders were filled Monday, more than 8,000 on Tuesday, about 11,300 Wednesday and 12,800 Thursday for a total of $3.64 million in sales over four days, according to the PLCB.

Before the coronavirus-­related closures, state stores across Pennsylvania averaged a combined $6.5 million in sales daily, according to PLCB figures.