The Pennsylvania Liquor Control Board publishes an exhaustive list of “damp” and “dry” municipalities in the State.
Dry municipalities, or those that don’t allow the sale of wine, spirits and/or malt and brewed beverages, have existed in Pennsylvania since the 19th Century. At the end of Prohibition in 1933, all Pennsylvania municipalities were deemed “wet” for alcohol sales, but state law made allowing alcohol sales a local option: voters in each municipality could ban the sale of alcohol (stay or go “dry”).
As of August 2023, about 675 of 2,560 Pennsylvania municipalities are at least partially dry.
Act 48 of 2019 gives municipalities the option to vote on whether or not to allow certain manufacturing licenses to be permitted to operate within their municipality. The new ballot questions are for the following types of licenses: Brewery (G), Brewery Storage (GS), Limited Distillery (AL), Limited Distillery satellite locations, Limited Winery (LK), and Limited Winery satellite locations. Distillery licenses and certain permits, such as Farmers Market Permits (FMPs) and Exposition Permits (EPs), are not affected by this change. The new ballot questions do not apply to any of these licenses that were granted prior to Aug. 31, 2019.