HARRISBURG -- Four state legislators, including a Democratic senator from Monroeville, are trying to make it easier for Pennsylvania beer drinkers to quench their thirst on Sundays.

And maybe even in time for football season this fall.

The legislators, who include Sen. Sean Logan, are again trying to change state liquor law so that beer drinkers can buy one or more cases of suds from noon to 5 p.m. on Sundays at Pennsylvania beer distributors.

A bill to permit that was approved last week by the Senate Law and Justice Committee, which oversees liquor issues.

Logan, Democratic chairman of the panel, said he hopes to get final approval by the full House and Senate before the Legislature leaves for summer recess, which probably won't happen before Saturday.

"I think there will be substantial support to pass it in both houses," he said Friday.

The bill would take effect in 60 days, so if it passes later this week, Sunday beer-by-the-case sales could be legal by early September, just in time for college and pro football.

Logan and Sen. Joe Conti, R-Bucks, Law and Justice chairman, tried to allow Sunday sales of beer by the case last fall, but ran out of time before the session ended in late November.

They also ran into stiff opposition from tavern and restaurant owners, who now are the only businesses allowed to make Sunday beer sales. They can sell customers one or two six-packs on a Sunday, and jealously guard their monopoly because it is lucrative.

Logan said he, Conti and the two heads of the House Liquor Control Committee, Reps. Ron Raymond, R-Delaware County, and Robert Donatucci, D-Philadelphia, have worked on a new bill for three months.

It includes a financial sweetener for tavern and restaurant owners. Currently, when they buy liquor, wine or beer from the Pennsylvania Liquor Control Board, they get a 7 percent discount.

The new bill would increase that discount to 10 percent, which will cost the PLCB an additional $10 million, Logan said.

He's hoping the additional revenue for tavern and restaurant owners will soften the opposition to Sunday beer-by-the-case sales.

Logan is pushing for Sunday case-beer sales as a matter of jobs and convenience for customers, he said.

"We are helping small businesses ---- distributors as well as taverns and restaurateurs ---- by letting the distributors be open on Sundays and by giving the restaurants a bigger discount," he said.

"It also makes Pennsylvania more consumer friendly for people who have a notion to buy a case of beer on Sunday."

It would be up to the owner of a distributorship whether to open on Sunday afternoons at all, or how many Sundays each year to be open. Distributors would have to pay a $100 annual fee to open on Sundays.