Not Just Food: Liquor Sales Spiking Ahead of Expected Areawide Snowstorm
By Kim Glovas
PHILADELPHIA (CBS) -- Snowstorms always mean people head to the grocery store to stock up on staples such as milk, bread, and eggs, but that's not the only store that's busy as a major snowstorm bears down on the Delaware Valley.
Wine and Spirits stores in Pennsylvania and privately owned liquor stores in New Jersey and Delaware were doing a booming business today, because of the forecast.
Nysia Barnes, assistant manager at the Wine and Spirits store in the Franklin Mills Mall, says it doesn't take much for people to have a reason to stock up.
"The idea of being stuck in the house and everybody has to go to the market for food, and we have to go get booze!" she says with a smile. "If I'm gonna be snowed in for a few days, I'd want to have all the bases covered."
The region is expecting up to a foot of snow, and Barnes says that will most likely not force the closing of the Wine and Spirits stores.
"The only time that we seem to close is when they declare a state of emergency," she tells KYW Newsradio. She says even when the forecast calls for heavy rain, business picks up. But she says snowstorms are the mother lode for wine and liquor sales. She says business started picking up yesterday afternoon and has been pretty steady ever since.
