Pennsylvania

Judge: Seized Wine Can't Be Sold to Benefit Chester County Hospital

A Pennsylvania judge is rejecting a hospital's bid to sell about 1,350 bottles of confiscated wine as a fundraiser.

Chester County Judge Edward Griffith ruled Tuesday that a 1935 law that allowed seized alcohol to be given to hospitals had intended the institutions to apply it toward pharmacological uses.

Griffith also said the Legislature never authorized the sale of seized alcohol, even as a fundraising activity to support the charitable works of a hospital.

The bottles of wine were seized two years ago during a state police investigation into a lawyer accused of skirting Pennsylvania's liquor laws by selling wine from his home.

Chester County Hospital had sought possession of the wine to sell it as a fundraiser. It wasn't immediately clear if the wine will be destroyed, or is even still drinkable.

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