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Congestion pricing to drive up the cost for NYC beer hounds: Another ‘nail in the coffin’
NY Post ^ | 1/12/25 | Deirdre Bardolf

Posted on 01/12/2025 7:50:51 AM PST by Libloather

That’s a buzz kill!

Big Apple beer hounds may have to fork over 13% more for a brew as congestion pricing drives up costs for customers and businesses alike in some of Manhattan’s busiest neighborhoods.

Anheuser-Busch, whose brands include Budweiser, Michelob Ultra, Stella Artois and Corona, will raise keg prices by $5 across the board for customers throughout the NYC area, a company sales rep told The Post this week.

“We’re building the cost of congestion pricing into delivery fees,” the rep said.

And that means bars will likely have to charge an extra dollar per pint to offset the higher price, which he said the industry giant is in the process of notifying customers about.

“It’s death by 1,000 cuts,” one angry beer drinker in Midtown said of the impending price increase. “It’s particularly galling to me because this is nothing more than another Albany cash grab,” he added.

Some brew fans said the jump a price hike may turn them into teetotalers.

“It’s not worth it,” said Jaye Bartell, 42, a customer at the Tile Bar in the East Village who said he only drinks Budweiser because it’s cheap.

The beer boondoggle is another “nail in the New York coffin” for the industry, according to Lee Seinfeld, owner of Dive Bar and three other spots on the Upper West Side.

“This is going to be hard for me and I’m above 61st Street,” Seinfeld said. “Midtown bars are really going to suffer,” said Seinfeld, who noted his food prices have already gone up 45% since the pandemic.

Some vendors have even asked if he’d take deliveries after the bar closes at 4 a.m. in order to save some dough, since off the tolls go down to $2.25 in off peak hours.

(Excerpt) Read more at nypost.com ...


TOPICS: Business/Economy; Conspiracy; Health/Medicine; Local News
KEYWORDS: beer; congestion; cost; nyc; wboopie
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Who votes for more expensive Butt Light? Someone did.
1 posted on 01/12/2025 7:50:51 AM PST by Libloather
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To: Libloather

“And that means bars will likely have to charge an extra dollar per pint to offset the higher price”

A higher price of $5 a keg translates to another $1 for a 16oz brew? Another failure of education today who can’t do 3rd grade math.


2 posted on 01/12/2025 7:59:58 AM PST by quantim (Victory is not relative, it is absolute.)
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To: Libloather

And how many businesses will go under because of this stupid tax? Governor looking at short term revenue. But long term loss. NYC keeps dying more and more each day.


3 posted on 01/12/2025 8:00:33 AM PST by LoveMyFreedom
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To: Libloather
one angry beer drinker in Midtown said ...snip... “ this is nothing more than another Albany cash grab,” he added.

So the Manhattan-imposed tax is on Manhattan drivers because of traffic congestion in Manhattan and somehow Albany is responsible for it. That explains how New York always elects democrats.

4 posted on 01/12/2025 8:02:18 AM PST by Bernard (Issue an annual budget. And Issue a federal government balance sheet. Let's see what we got.)
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To: Libloather

if you’re dumb enough to drink that piss water you should be charged more!!!


5 posted on 01/12/2025 8:05:43 AM PST by God luvs America (6young 3.5 million pay no income tax and vote for DemoKrats...)
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To: LoveMyFreedom

It is not short term. City wants businesses to close.

1) You are not allowed to enjoy yourselves unless you are using hard drugs for which the politicos get a cut
2) small businesses are run by non-liberals. So, like with the Democrat-funded Antifa/BLM riots; the politicos will prevent the businesses from re-opening after a bankruptcy and use eminent domain to seize the property for the city.

This is how the Maui fires were handled. And, this is how the PacificPalisades fires will keep any single family homes from being rebuilt.


6 posted on 01/12/2025 8:07:01 AM PST by bobbo666
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To: Bernard

That was what I was thinking, too, from what I had previously read.


7 posted on 01/12/2025 8:10:10 AM PST by ConservativeMind (Trump: Befuddling Democrats, Republicans, and the Media for the benefit of the US and all mankind.)
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To: Libloather

“It’s more expensive to live in NY”
Me: “I don’t care”


8 posted on 01/12/2025 8:14:07 AM PST by AppyPappy (If Hitler were alive today and criticized Trump, would he still be Hitler?)
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To: LoveMyFreedom

That’s how ignorant they are, the lefties of New York.


9 posted on 01/12/2025 8:16:35 AM PST by No name given ( Anonymous is who you’ll know me as)
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To: Libloather

Some one failed elementary math class. $5 per keg which holds 15.5 GALLONS of beer is equal too 165 regular 12 ounce “pints”. The pint glasses every bar uses are 12 oz size. Don’t believe me take a regular sizes coke can and pour it into a bar pint glass. That said if AHB raised it’s keg prices by $5 that works out to 3 CENTS Per beer out of a normal keg that holds 165 beers worth in it. If the bar raises the price by a buck a beer they are making a $160 increase in revenue in a $5 while sale upcharge. Sounds like a perfect case for a lawyer to take to the state DA for gouging.

Now let’s look at what a typical class 8 truck the soft sides semi that carries those kegs can carry. Brown distributing in Austin is the AHB , my good buddy and former roommate Brian while at UR still drives for them as a CLASS A CDL so I asked him who many kegs does a class 8 soft sides carry? For a real commercial distributor such as Brown the typical truck carries 300 kegs per run.

So now we know how many kegs are going in to a full load of a 4x2 class eight semi with a two axle trailer. This is needed to know how much the toll is. So you have a commercial truck with four axles now let’s download the official pdf with the tolls.

The toll for a multi axle truck is $21.60 one way when you enter the zone south of 96th st that’s once for a whole delivery lload. For any locations south of 60th st as a distro you are grouping your drops so all the drops will be in zone for truck heading that way. You use ESRI GIS software to optimise your route for right turns and minimum miles as well this saves fuel and every distro uses ESRI ARC software applications for this task.

This charge is only at peak hours from 9pm-5am weekdays, 9pm-9am weekends it’s a $5.40 per crossing south of the line or into the island south of 60th st.

So at peak times a truck carrying 300 kegs worth of beer is charged $21.60 once to enter and stay in lower Manhattan south of 60th and $5.40 after 9pm and before 5 or 9 am. Remember this is a crossing charge of the truck is already inside the zone after 5am or 9am they can complete their run inside and exit without paying the peak rate. This encourages trucks to enter early and leave during peak times.

There are credits for using the tunnels as well. It’s $12 off the charge if you come in via the Lincoln or Holland, and $6 off if you come from Brooklyn vis the Queen’s Mid or the HCL tunnels. But we will use the standard rates.

Ok so AHB wants $5 a keg upcharge but at peak times they are charged at most $21.60 to enter and stay inside lower Manhattan. That works out to 7 CENTS per keg congestion actual charge. $21.30/$5= 0.07 off peak $5.40/300kegs= 1.8 cents per keg. Here again AHB is gouging their customers.

The other size truck used to deliver bulk beer are class 7 single unit trucks think moving truck sized truck 30,000lb with a lift gate, you need a class B or A CDL to drive one and they hold 150 to 180 kegs each I asked Bry what they load out them at. Those toll is $14.40 peak and $3.60 off peak. With tunnel credits of $7.20 & $3.60.

So a class 7 delivery carrying 150 kegs at peak times is paying 14.40/150= 9 cents per keg extra off peak it’s 4.8 mils per keg or less than half a cents and the AHB wants $5 per keg extra that’s text book gouging and should be prosecuted. Even if the trucks came in and out for TEN times per load they would only add a class most 90 cents per keg no one anywhere sets up deliveries like that when it takes over an hour and half to get from Harlem to midtown or queens to midtown. You group your deliveries by Burroughs once a truck is in Manhattan every delivery it makes us in Manhattan for that run.

So obviously this is knee jerk with zero mathematical justification.


10 posted on 01/12/2025 8:33:53 AM PST by GenXPolymath
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To: Libloather

In a democracy, you get the government you deserve.

We are also all free to move.

This is why I left Seattle for rural Kentucky 13 years ago. Changed my life.


11 posted on 01/12/2025 8:36:40 AM PST by cuban leaf (2024 is going to be one for the history books, like 1939. And 2025 will be more so, like 1940-1945.)
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To: quantim

There are 165 bar sized beers in a standard keg it’s 3 cents per beer at $5 per keg. Textbook gouging. Same for the distributor look up I did the 3rd grade math they couldn’t or in this case don’t want to do. They want to bitch and take advantage of a situation. The AG should step in and slap them down hard for exploiting the situation.


12 posted on 01/12/2025 8:37:06 AM PST by GenXPolymath
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To: Libloather

In determining how much money they could steal from motor vehicle drivers to subsidize the bloated, corrupt, financially mismanaged mass transit system, they made no determination at all of the economic impact the congestion fees will have on every business in lower Manhattan, below 59th street. retail or otherwise, or on how much that impact will be sent to the pocketbooks of the residents and visitors there. As prices for everything in the area go up (as the cost of delivering everything to the area goes up), I expect some retail and food service outfits will close, being unable to keep their cutomers with the higher prices they must impose to keep their bottom line healthy. I don’t think it will be long before Amazon, USPS, UPS and Fedex raise what they charge for deliveries to the area.


13 posted on 01/12/2025 8:40:11 AM PST by Wuli
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To: Libloather

I remember a few years back when illegal heroin was supposedly priced competitively with legally buying a six pack in NYC.

I think I read that story about the time Phillip Seymour Hoffman overdosed on heroin in NYC.


14 posted on 01/12/2025 8:50:30 AM PST by Biblebelter
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To: GenXPolymath

Greedflation.


15 posted on 01/12/2025 8:57:09 AM PST by Tolerance Sucks Rocks (FBI out of Florida!)
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To: LoveMyFreedom

The math doesn’t kill anything. A truck is charged at most $21.20 for a full semi trailer worth of goods. That’s 50,000+ lbs of goods. If they come in early they pay $5.40 once inside they can stay all day and deliver you pay to enter and it’s pay only once, no charge to leave or stay inside the zone. In this case a full load is 300 kegs for a full sized beer truck. That’s 7 cents per keg at peak times. Pure knee jerk quackery. They even get half off to use the Lincoln or Holland tunnels at peak times. The layout and traffic in Manhattan dictate using GIS to group your deliveries by Burroughs so once inside you are making deliveries to that area. But even if you leave and enter ten times with a single load it’s still only 70 cents per keg that holds the revenue of 165 beers I. It.

$21.20 is also 42 cents per ton of goods, shipping uses cost per ton and ton miles. A truck can move 50 tons at a time and if they come in off peak it’s 10 cents per ton of goods ,once inside they can deliver all day you pay once to enter. 2000lbs is a lot of fish,fruit,or,produce for restaurants in cardboard boxes. Even if a large restaurant went though 10 tons of food per day that’s only $4.20 at peak times for TEN tons worth of food. Calm down Francis is what needs to be told to the knee jerk crowd.

London has mind numbing traffic it was so much worse before they put in a congestion charge it used to take 2+ hours to get from the ring road to central London now it only takes an hour ish, congestion charges work. Trucks via their large capacity vs the charge are not affected much, it’s the commuters who drive in that get hit and they are the ones clogging the streets 700,000 vehicles enter Manhattan every day less than 40,000 of those are trucks.

It’s the cars that need to go. Cabs,uber’s have a $1.50 to 75 cent fee per ride. Buses, vanpool,pararides,jitneys are all exempt. This encourages car/van pool and community rides. Manhattan has the most dense ,largest and most frequent subway in the world moving people is what it does best, plus the Mbus system is every 5 min or so in peak times. I lived in NYC for years while at University during the 90s in Hells Kitchen and Brooklyn. I know The City, and am 100% in favor of this charge as a former resident of Manhattan.


16 posted on 01/12/2025 8:57:27 AM PST by GenXPolymath
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To: GenXPolymath

My analysis is less complicated than yours, but reaches the same conclusion: Anheuser-Busch typically distributes its pissy alcohol water in 1/2 kegs, which hold 124 16 oz. pints. Allowing 24 pints for waste and buy-backs, the net yield is 100 pints. $5.00 divided by 100 is .05, which means the pub-owner must raise the price of a pint of beer by a mere $.05 to cover the $5.00 increase in the cost of the 1/2 keg. That’s a .625% increase on a $8.00 pint. Not exactly a budget buster for the owner or the drinker — unless the owner is a democrat eager to exploit a crisis that exists only in the minds of the stupid.


17 posted on 01/12/2025 9:05:48 AM PST by Labyrinthos
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To: GenXPolymath

I divided $3.60 by 150 and got 2.4 cents per keg. Still pretty damned low. Still greedflation going on.


18 posted on 01/12/2025 9:10:29 AM PST by Tolerance Sucks Rocks (FBI out of Florida!)
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To: GenXPolymath

You were there A) as a young man B) in the era where Guliani cleaned the place up.

The subway is not a safe choice for many/most, today.


19 posted on 01/12/2025 9:11:14 AM PST by FreedomPoster (Islam delenda est)
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To: FreedomPoster
The subway is not a safe choice for many/most, today.

It's time to clean up the subway again. Rudy showed us how it was done.

20 posted on 01/12/2025 9:17:51 AM PST by MinorityRepublican
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