Burns’ struggle with LCB invokes spirit of ‘Sunshine Week’
Lawmaker enmeshed in court battle to obtain public records
Rep. Frank Burns March 17, 2020 | 1:20 PM
EBENSBURG, March 17 – In commemoration of "Sunshine Week," state Rep. Frank Burns is reminding Pennsylvania news outlets and citizens of his ongoing struggle with the Liquor Control Board, which has ignored a ruling by the state Office of Open Records and forced him into a court battle to obtain a listing of liquor licenses available for auction in each county.
Burns, D-Cambria, is enmeshed in a legal battle that pits him and the lone lawyer he is paying out of his own pocket against the LCB and its battery of highly-paid, taxpayer-funded attorneys.
“For reasons that defy logic, the LCB seems hell-bent on maintaining secretiveness when it comes to releasing information that the Office of Open Records has clearly ruled should be available to the public,” Burns said. “There are times that I feel like David versus Goliath, but I press on because the LCB can’t be allowed to lord over the people like this.”
“Sunshine Week” runs from March 15-21 and is an annual nationwide celebration of access to public information and what it means for you and your community. It is sponsored by the News Leaders Association and the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press.
Burns’ odyssey began last summer, when the LCB denied his Right-to-Know request, on grounds that included the argument that Burns was seeking “trade secret confidential proprietary information” from the state regulatory agency.
Following protocol, Burns appealed to the Office of Open Records, which ruled in his favor while demolishing the argument put forth by the LCB. After the LCB then dug in its heels and forced Burns to go to court, he sought a friend-of-the-court brief from Gov. Tom Wolf, to no avail.
“Anyone who believes in government transparency should be rightfully stunned at the ‘What you don’t know can’t hurt you’ stance taken by the LCB,” Burns said. “Their reluctance to tell us how many liquor licenses they have on hand for auction in each county leads me to wonder what else they might be hiding.”
Burns believes the LCB is handling its auction of reactivated licenses in a manner that gives it an unfair market advantage over mom-and-pop restaurants and bars, whose owners are seeing the licenses they already hold devalued in the LCB’s quest to maximize its own profit to boost state coffers.
Burns also wants to know how many licenses the LCB is holding so he can make an informed decision, as an elected official, on legislation that could increase the number of liquor licenses in Pennsylvania.
In a related matter, Burns has also introduced H.B. 1544, which would suspend liquor license auctions until publication of the required study conducted by the Wine and Spirits Wholesale and Retail Privatization Commission.