Plan for Pennsylvania’s 24 Hour Casino Liquor Sales Flops

Img: www.media.lehighvalleylive.com

Hard pressed and cash strapped to fill a one billion dollar budget hole, the states legislators figured that giving the casino’s the right to purchase a million dollar liquor license that would enable them to sell liquor around the clock was a win-win situation for both them as well as the casinos.

This would ultimately mean that the state would get twelve million dollars and the casinos would be able to serve liquor after the cut off time of 2:00am.

This sounds like a really great idea, but it did not turn out the way legislators were actually hoping.

Mark Juliano the CEO of Sands Casino stated that they were not going to pay one million dollars just for the privilege to sell liquor after the cut off time of 2:00am. Mark Juliano also continued to state that he would like to know who exactly advises these legislators due to the fact that this one just does not make a lot of sense.

What this means is that ultimately the 149 million dollars that legislators hoped to generate from this new liquor law that passed in June of 2016 already has a 12 million dollar gap and this new law does not go into effect until August 8, 2016.  This new law called for casinos in the area to pay 1 million dollars for a license that would permit these casinos to serve alcohol on the floor 24 hours a day, this would override the state law that is already in effect that forbids the serving of any alcohol beverage between the hours of 2:00am and 6:00am daily.

State legislators assumed that every casino in the area would be waiting in line just to purchase one of these licenses, an easy 12 million dollars in the bank.  But as this new expanded liquor sale provision was actually signed on June 8, 2016 the have been no actual takers.