This is the Cato Daily Podcast for Friday, December 4, 2015.

I'm Caleb Brown.

As we once again mark the end of prohibition this repeal day,

there are places in the country where the legacy of prohibition lives on.

In Pennsylvania, incoherent alcohol laws managed to waste resources of customers, retailers,

producers, and even the police.

Bob Dick is with the Commonwealth Foundation in Pennsylvania.

At the State Policy Network annual meeting in Grand Rapids,

we spoke about the Keystone State's ridiculous alcohol laws.

In the two Commonwealths in which I've lived, Kentucky, where liquor is a fairly powerful interest group.

I had generally few complaints about access to products that I wanted to buy.

But Virginia, of course, all the stores are state-owned and

they are the sole purchaser of liquor for sale to both individuals and restaurants and in the

Commonwealth of Pennsylvania it seems to actually be worse than it is in

Virginia. So would you say that Pennsylvania has perhaps the

worst system for allowing adults to buy liquor?

I would say so if not the worst or the worst and if you look at certain laws for example in

Pennsylvania if you are a consumer and you want to buy a bottle of wine or a

six-pack go to New Jersey and Delaware to pick it up, bring it back to Pennsylvania.

That's actually illegal, although people will do it anyway because either they don't know

or they don't care.

They go to these states and pick up their alcohol because the current system in Pennsylvania is not effectively serving them well.

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