Union Leader Speaks Out Against Alcohol Privatization
PHILADELPHIA (CBS) – Chris Stigall spoke with Wendell Young of the United Food and Commercial Workers Local 1776 about the union's opposition to allowing sales of beer and wine in convenience and grocery stores.
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Wendell Young Of the United Food And Commercial Workers Local 1776
Young stated the evidence backs up their claim that the greater opportunity to acquire alcohol leads to increased damage within the community.
"All the research points to the fact that if you make alcohol convenient, more readily available, the more outlet density you have, the more access to alcohol that gets in the wrong hands, young people, people already intoxicated -- that leads to all kinds of harms, including financial harms, property damage and death," he said.
Young discounted the practices of other states and commented that Pennsylvania should not follow along just to fall in line with the rest of the country.
"Just because other states have decided to go down the road of making it more accessible and taking in less revenue for the taxpayers and creating more harm, doesn't mean that's better," Young commented.
Young defended an ad produced by the UFCW claiming that more children will be killed resulting from increased access to alcohol.
"If you make alcohol more accessible in thousands of locations, all the evidence from everywhere else that has done it shows that more access means a higher number of problems resulting from alcohol, including death of people. That is a fact."
He claimed that Pennsylvania Liquor Control Board employees do a much better job keeping alcohol away from minors than do private retail workers.
"Every state in which the private sector sells alcohol, alcohol gets into the hands of young people easier, faster, and more often, and into the hands of people who are intoxicated, than in states that are control and every independent study that's ever been done proves it," Young emphasized.
