Maya Reports

Two supermarkets in PA are going to test the ‘wine vending machine’ idea…if successful, 98 additional machines will be placed across the state.

How can this be legal?  What’s the catch?

After selecting your wine of choice, you insert your driver’s license into the machine (so that it can verify your age). Now, you may be thinking, like I was, that a computer within the vending machine would scan your license to verify age, like when you rent a movie at a Redbox, you scan your credit card, and it’s automatically charged. Well, if that’s what you were thinking, then you’re wrong.

Their identify is verified via video link by a member of the Pennsylvania Liquor Control Board (PLCB) who can see the customer in front of a camera installed in the kiosk.

This may be an interesting way to add jobs to the marketplace…

AND then

…customers must blow into a breathalyzer to make sure their breath-alcohol level is not more than 0.02, or just one-quarter the legal limit for driving. If it is, the sale will be denied.

I had no idea that the PA state government strictly controls the retail and whole alcoholic drink trade (apparently since 1933 – end of Prohibition), which makes it all the more strange that it is the first state to test this new concept.

Filed under: Business, Random, Tech, Pennsylvania Liquor Control Board, Pennsylvania wine kiosk, PLCB, Prohibition, vending machine breathalyzer, wine vending machine