Convenience and grocery stores picked up most of the so-called "zombie" liquor licenses auctioned this month by the Liquor Control Board.
Prior to the passage of Act 39, last year's sweeping liquor reform law, the PLCB had no mechanism to re-sell the roughly 70 licenses that "died" each year due to enforcement actions, financial troubles or other factors.
Those licenses essentially fell off the books.
According to the PLCB, about 1,200 licenses expired since 2000.
The state has now held two auctions, selling a limited number of those licenses spread across Pennsylvania in such a way as to avoid saturating the market and reducing the value of the licenses currently in use.
The PLCB received 90 bids for 42 licenses by the March 3 deadline for the second auction. The vast majority of the high bidders were grocery and convenience store chains like Giant, Sheetz and Turkey Hill
Sheetz, for example, was the high bidder for both of Pittsburgh's licenses, submitting bids of $72,000 and $83,000. Giant picked up York County's one available license for $291,000. Turkey Hill won the bidding war for both Lancaster and Lebanon counties' licenses at $408,000 and $113,000, respectively. In Dauphin County, CHR Corporation, the parent company of Rutter's, submitted the highest bid of $191,000.
Statewide, winning bids ranged from $25,001 for a Cambria County license to $463,802 for a license in Montgomery County. The average bid was $119,315.
Seven licenses--one each in Beaver, Carbon, Franklin, Greene, Mifflin, Pike, and Wayne counties--received no bids. An eighth bid, from Northumberland County, failed to cross the minimum $25,000 bid threshold.
Bidders have 14 days from notification to submit payment to the PLCB. If they fail to do so, the license will fall to the second-highest bidder. They will then have six months to file a license application with the agency.
The full list of liquor license high bidders is included below.
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