A brief history of a long effort to regulate stop-and-go stores

In the early 1980s, community members begin to report serious problems with a new type of business. Then called beer delis and later stop-and-gos, these businesses, neighbors said, sold alcohol to go that attracted customers who were loud as they loitered and littered in front of the stores, attracting illegal and sometimes violent activities.

As one resident said at the time: “I never dreamed that they could be so damaging to the community.”

For more than 40 years, elected officials, city and state agencies, police, and the Pennsylvania Liquor Control Board have been bombarded with the same complaints from neighborhood residents, yet the problem continues to defy a solution.

» READ MORE: Four decades in the making, a task force takes steps to rid Philadelphia of nuisance stop-and-go stores

1983: Gov. Dick Thornburgh signed a law requiring the Pennsylvania Liquor Control Board to give greater weight to complaints by neighbors at license hearings.

1987: State Rep. Ralph Acosta, a Philadelphia Democrat and the first Latino to be elected to the State House, gave a a tour of Kensington to fellow elected officials and PLCB members, to show the devastation caused by stop-and-gos.

“Rep. Acosta has told us about his district for over two years, but to see it is worse than he described,” said Rep. Eugene G. Saloom (D., Westmoreland), who served as chair of the state House Liquor Control Committee.

1987: Gov. Robert Casey Sr. signed a law transferring the enforcement of alcohol laws at stop-and-gos from the PLCB to the Bureau of Liquor Control Enforcement (BLCE), a new agency of the Pennsylvania State Police.

1990: The PLCB, under Chair James A. Goodman, established its Nuisance Bar Program, which could refuse to renew the licenses of nuisance stop-and-gos, forgoing the time-consuming court and administrative adjudication process.

1991: District Attorney Lynne M. Abraham launched the agency’s Nuisance Bar Task Force. Its goal was to help city residents shut down nuisance bars by using pro bono legal help to support community groups prepare their court cases.

1992: State Rep. Andrew Carn (D., Philadelphia) announced the creation of a citywide task force to rewrite the state’s liquor code and halt the complaints about stop-and-gos.

“It became clear to me that the present liquor code is archaic and does not address many of the circumstances that our communities face today,” explained Carn, who chaired the task force.

2005: Gov. Ed Rendell signed a bill giving City Council power to control special to-go permits for stores that wanted to sell beer or malt liquor to be consumed off premises. A store would have to get Council’s approval before the PLCB would consider granting the store a liquor license. Two Common Pleas Court judges ruled it wrong for Council to “commingle legislative, prosecutorial and adjudicative functions.”

2005: Mayor John Street signed into law an 11 p.m. curfew on takeout businesses in residential communities, defined as at least 80% homes. By 2015, 96% of the violations had been issued to Chinese takeout restaurants, and owners claimed they were being unfairly targeted. In 2018, 23 local Chinese restaurant owners file suit for discrimination in federal court. The group announced a settlement in 2019, with the city agreeing to not enforce the curfew, to train local police about implicit bias, and to compensate the plaintiffs $265,000.

2017: Gov. Tom Wolf gave the PLCB the authority to conduct more inspections of stop-and-gos, instead of waiting every two years, and to immediately suspend the liquor license of establishments that were found to be harmful to communities.

2017: City Councilmember Cindy Bass introduced a bill that required stop-and-gos to have a minimum of 30 seats for customers and at least one customer-accessible restroom, and remove their interior acrylic barrier or bulletproof glass. Mayor James Kenney signed the bill into law.

2018: State Sen. Anthony Hardy Williams invited PLCB members to tour stop-and-gos to highlight quality-of-life issues, including public intoxication, illegal drug activity, and disorderly conduct.

2023: Gov. Josh Shapiro announced the creation of the Pennsylvania Stop-and-Go Legislative Task Force. In May 2024, Williams, who chairs the task force, held a tour of stop-and-gos for task force members unfamiliar with the quality-of-life issues.

2024: The task force convenes for two days of hearings to listen to community members, stop-and-go owners, and others talk about the issue. The group is expected to release a report with recommendations by September.