It's time for Pennsylvania to belly up to the bar and reform its antiquated liquor laws. Better yet, it is time for the state to get out of the liquor business and turn it over to entrepreneurs who know how to satisfy customers rather than kowtow to heavily entrenched lobbies and other special interests.

The General Assembly has tried to change the system. In fact, a Senate bill has just been released from committee which will ultimately get the state out of the liquor business. Here are the highlights of the bill:• Removes Pennsylvania as the wholesaler of wine and liquor• Creates wholesale permits for licensed importers of wine and liquor to purchase.• Creates expanded permits for restaurants and hotel licensees to allow them to sell wine and spirts to-go.• Allows grocery stores with licenses to purchase permits to sell up to five bottles of wine and two bottles of spirits.• Provides for the closure of state stores once sufficient wine and spirits products are available at surrounding beer distributors.• Provides educational assistance for displaced state store employees.• Brings $220 million in revenues to the commonwealth for fiscal year 2015-16.Not perfect, but light years ahead of where we are now. Gov. Tom Wolf has threatened to veto the bill if it comes to his desk, and it's doubtful there are enough votes to override the gubernatorial veto.Each time it appears as if the General Assembly will finally bite the bullet, those powerful lobbies, which grease the political machinery in Harrisburg with campaign contributions, have prevailed, and legislators have ended up thumbing their collective noses at us consumers. We, on the other hand, have been beaten down so long by our elected officials that we shrug our shoulders and concede, "Hey, it's Harrisburg." Yes, the place where too often special interests trample the concerns of us everyday taxpayers.Whether it's beer distributors fearful of losing their stranglehold on significant business, or listening to the pleas of the employees of the current state store system, who earn family-supporting wages and benefits, in the end, expectations turn to inaction and political gridlock.So we continue to be inconvenienced. Unlike in states such as New York and Colorado, where you can buy a case of beer in a drugstore, or New Jersey and South Carolina, where you can go into a package store and buy beer, wine and spirits all under one roof, we have to make two stops one at a supermarket, unless we want a case or more; then we have to go to a distributor's outlet and then to a state store for wine and liquor. We can't buy wine at a grocery store or a beer distributor. We must buy it at a state store.The ideal would be one-stop shopping, allowing consumers to buy any kind of alcohol at any licensed location. That we can't do this confounds many visitors who are mystified by our arcane and absurd laws.If I walk into a local supermarket, I can buy a maximum of 192 ounces of beer. So, I get out my calculator and compute that this equals 16 12-ounce bottles. I want the equivalent of a case of beer (24 12-ounce bottles), and I don't want to drive across town to the beer distributor's to get it."Well," suggests the clerk, "you can buy a 12-pack, take it to your vehicle, then come back for another 12-pack.""This is legal?" I ask."Yes," the clerk replies."So, why can't I buy 24 12-ounce bottles all at once?" I ask."Because," the clerk replies, "that is illegal."Sheer lunacy.BRUCE FRASSINELLItneditor@tnonline.com