Liquor Store Pet Peeves

What the hell liquor store did you work at that had the publicly-available bathroom get dirty so rarely? Scratch that, what kind of place exists where ANY public toilet is used so cautiously and carefully?

No seriously, do you share a neighborhood with God or something? If so, good thing you avoided the heinous sin of telling people to piss somewhere else - God would have been pissed!

 

It was just a run of the mill liquor store in a working class town near where I grew up. It's not like we had a sign out front that said "Public restroom inside!" Rather, if someone asked if they could use one, we let them. It really wasn't a big deal.

 

When they post on Facebook that they have or will have something, and don't tell you the price. Even after several people ask. I get that it's some sort of thing where they want you to come in to find out, and maybe buy other stuff, but it's annoying.

 

Customers...they suck!

Oh this thread is for patrons, not liquor store workers, maybe I should start a thread about that.

 

Here in Southern Cali, almost EVERY store keeps there 1-2 bottle allocations in the back. While this is cool for us that know what we are looking for, this is the part that gets me going.

Me: Enter bottle shop.
Emp: "Anything I can help you with?"
Me: "Do you have any single bottle allocations in the back?"
Emp: "What are you looking for?"

WTF! Now i have to go down a standard bucket list of single allocation beers, btw, that rarely EVER changes! Don't ask me WTF i'm looking for and them make me say, "ohh PtE, Blind Pig, RR this, Alpine that, this BA stout, that BW" or whatever the new release is.....

 

My I just hate my local store. Most of the time the guys there are asking me about the beers im buying. I think if you work at the berr syore you should know about alk the beer your selling.

 

The town of Arlington Heights, IL will not allow liquor stores to sell cold bombers..."It will attract a lower class of individual to our area"... meaning homeless people...when was the last time a homeless person dropped $3 on a bottle of Weihenstaphaner when he/she could get a lot more Maddog 20/20 for a bigger kick?

 

Ugh... saw the worst in action this morning - those "Beers of the World" store-mixed six packs and other similar scams. They're $9.99 for six beers, and have something like one beer from Victory and one from SN rounded out by Harp, Heineken, Labatt, and Dos Equis. I saw a "microbrewery" one too with an assortment of Leinenkugel, Yuengling, Shock Top, Blue Moon, and Newcastle.
A guy in the store recommended it to a woman after she found out they were out of the 60-minute cases her son wanted (and she then asked for "hoppy beer"). I gnashed my teeth and nearly stopped him/offered her a Racer 5 bomber. Fortunately, a more beer-savvy clerk came by a minute later and recommended Torpedo.

 

in some states, like here in VA, it is illegal to post the price...

 

I don't know if it like that in CA, but but that would be a good explanation if it is. Never heard that law before.

 

Is that specifi

c to certain VA regions? It's standard in Charlottesville to see the bottle prices. Definitely prefer that verses the ask-how-much-every-bottle-is-game.

 

ABC regulation. I've never seen places like Beer Run in C'ville to advertise the beer prices on the likes of FB/twitter. print advertising is a different situation.

 

Got it. Come to think of it, I don't think I've seen any social media prices for our VA shops. Guess I was confusing that situation with some bottle shops in places I've traveled that don't have prices posted in the stores, either on the bottles or at least on the shelf. That's a pet peeve of the first rank.

 

agreed. that is either pure laziness or greed by the shop.

 

It's never bothered me, but I worked in beverage long enough that very little gets to me. What I -did- find irritating was when I'd buy a 12-pack of my favorite domestic swill (see avatar) and have a customer berate me for my horseshit taste and proceed to tell me: "you work at the Polish Liquor Barn! SURELY, you can afford better beer!" Taste being subjective and all, what the heck are you gonna tell a turkey like that? Nothin'; Mama didn't tell me not to crack wise but being socked in the jaw one too many times did (and besides, it was GREAT to have a job during a recession).

Depends on the store, I suppose? I'm not big into wine but have overheard wine buyers (aficianados?) quibbling with one another enough over the years that I suspect most cashiers are happy enough just to send 'em on their merry way!

 

A couple of things. I won't get to everything. From the perspective of someone that has worked in a bottle shop for the best part of 6.5 years.

Firstly, singles out of 6-packs. Is ok to do. However, what is not ok to do is to rip singles out of 6 packs when there are clearly singles available! That is one of the things that really bugs me...

Secondly, this thing about having single beer bottles or cartons or whatever at the back of the store (in the storeroom), whether rare or not, just doesn't happen in reality - whatever is at the back of the store is over-stocks for what can't fit out on the shelves in the actual store.

The only reasons beer might be exclusively at the back of the store is:

• it is on a promotion and it hasn't started yet;
• it has no pricing - this is so for large chain liquor stores where pricing is centrally done elsewhere outside the store

I will concede, on the rare occasion, that some beer might be kept at the back of the store for a particular customer who is a regular and the beer in question is in short supply. But that has occured more prevalenty as I have down-sized into a smaller store, certainly in the bigger stores there is less of a need to do it as you have more stock generally...

Otherwise the only other reason to have beer exclusively at the back of the store if it's stock I have my mits on - and in this regard when it comes to the customer/employee relationship where the customer comes first, not in this case

 

Some of y'all really need to make better friends with your local craft beer provider. Learn their name, talk to them, and stay loyal to one store and you'll have a lot easier of a time with this whole thing.

RE: holding in the back. This is completely normal here in Texas and I expect it for all limited releases and prefer it. Otherwise you get cats who'll buy up the entire allocation of a certain beer from a store with no intention of actually drinking it... who'll subsequently throw it on Craigslist (at 2-3x the original price) to try to make a buck. These cats mostly live in Houston, wear ties, and are particularly fond of Saint Arnold.

 

Not in the handful of 3.2 ABW states.

​

AB, MC and some of the bigger imports (Heineken, Corona, etc. *) all make"not more than 3.2% alcohol by weight" versions of many of their beers for those markets. There are even 3.2 malt liquors - Olde English 800 3.2

*And probably other domestic and foreign brewers-​

maybe the 3.2 staters on BA can supply more examples.​

 

This thread's tl/dr version:

Consumers suck.

 

Last I heard...they did have homeless folks hanging out at the library in AH. Maybe they came across BA on the public-use computers?

(JK.....I am pro-homeless folks. So please do not call me a politically incorrect, uncaring jerk!)