(Centredaily) - Big changes sometimes demand first steps, but Pennsylvania has now found its footing in the long climb out of the Prohibition era, with a new law that begins the process of ending our irrational state liquor monopoly.

For years I led the fight to get Pennsylvania out of the liquor business. Last week after three previous House votes for full privatization, Gov. Tom Wolf signed a bill that allows the sale of wine in grocery stores, expanded sales in hotels and eating establishments, and allows for wine lovers to order direct shipments to their homes.

Last year, Wolf vetoed a full privatization bill after it passed both houses. This latest, a compromise, passed the house 157-31, and the governor’s signature marks progress in moving us into the new century.

It marks progress, too, for our state budget. The governor’s budget office estimates the new law will add at least $150 million annually to state revenues.

Ideally, spirits will follow wine onto the grocers’ shelves, but legislative victories are often incremental. Nobody knows that better than Pennsylvanians who have to deal every day with the legacies of special interests deeply invested in the status quo.

Now, with wine moving from state stores onto grocery shelves, the convenience will prove irresistible. When privatization first broke through the legislative barricades three years ago, opponents used apocalyptic rhetoric that would have left listeners with the notion that alcohol sold by the state is less intoxicating.

Overblown language never lasts. Soon enough, as the marketplace overtakes state bureaucracy, citizens will see the common sense in allowing private liquor sales.

This idea will likely take root in many of the rural counties, where many communities are saddled with revenue-losing state stores that are open only a few days a week.

Those of us old enough to recall the state stores of years past are struck by how, in retrospect, they mirror old, Soviet-era stores, with the merchandise tucked away in the back and a mimeographed list of products from which the consumer made a selection and hoped it was in stock.