Massachusetts Alcoholic Beverage Licensing Blog

Connecticut residents have a new reason to cross state lines in to Massachusetts. First, it was cheaper gas, now it is cheaper liquor. Connecticut has raised its liquor tax by 20% effective July 1.

Employees at liquor stores near the state line have reported an increase in business.

Gas prices are also hovering over the four dollar mark in Connecticut.

Good piece in the Patriot Ledger about the increase in the number of wineries in Massachusetts. The Globe wrote about this last month, as reflected in my July 26 blog post.

There are now a record 36 wineries operating across the state, including seven that have opened since 2007.

For sale in North Andover: a Chinese restaurant that has been the ire of police and town officials for years. The Beijing Restaurant has been on the market since July 23. Realtor Tom Caldarone of Concord-based Omni Properties, LLC said the owners are seeking $1,995,000 for the property.

The restaurant closed shortly after losing its liquor license and never reopened. Selectmen unanimously voted to revoke the Beijing's license on May 2, calling the Osgood Street business a threat to public safety.

Selectmen voted to revoke the license after North Andover police arrested owner Wen Jing Huang's husband, Can Qi Liang of Quincy, for operating under the influence of liquor and a marked lanes violation on March 31.

Police said Liang was drinking at Beijing before driving home on Route 125 and nearly hitting a police cruiser.

Huang appealed to the Alcoholic Beverages Control Commission, but dropped the appeal in June before receiving a hearing.

The Beijing has been the site of a series of incidents in recent years, including instances of underage drinking and allegations of patrons being over-served.

The property at 1250 Osgood Street offers more than 6,000 square feet.

The Eagle Tribune reports that the state ABCC will team up with Lawrence police to sweep through city bars and clubs for five or six weeks beginning this weekend, in a coordinated effort "to rein in the wave of lawlessness that's taking place in Lawrence," state Treasurer Steven Grossman said.

Grossman's announcement that ABCC agents will be a presence in Lawrence bars and clubs through September is a significant ratcheting up of attention by the agency, which some local officials say has been part of the problem in Lawrence because it is too quick to overturn disciplinary decisions by the city's Licensing Board.

The website patch.com reports on the snags facing three Braintree establishments trying to get up and running with liquor licenses. The article illustrates well the often cumbersome liquor licensing process, with a myriad number of issues that can arise, such as financing, parking, and entertainment. All the more reason to hire an experience liquor license lawyer to assist with the licensing process -- please contact us at www.fogelmanlawfirm.com if you need help.

The Peabody Licensing Board has approved the transfer of an all-alcohol liquor license from Bugaboo Creek to Vignali LLC, owned by developer Sal Palumbo. The planned piano bar/jazz club restaurant is scheduled to open in Newhall Crossing in the spring of 2012.

Bugaboo Creek closed in Peabody and several other Massachusetts locations in November 2010 after CB Holding filed Chapter 11 in Federal Bankruptcy Court in New York.

The Town of Adams Board of Selectmen has placed five liquor-licenses holders on suspended sentences for failing to pass compliance checks. O'Geary's package store, Forest Park Country Club, Wojo's bar, C.J's Sports Pub, and Gringo's Firehouse Cafe were all given a six-month probationary period after they failed alcohol compliance checks in June.

If one of those establishments fails another check in that period, an immediate one-day license suspension will become effective.

Good article in southcoasttoday about fake ID's going "high-tech," and the difficulty law enforcement and local business owners have in discerning which ID's are fake. Businesses may want to consider buying a machine that can read the license and help determine whether it is legitimate.

Interesting piece on patch.com about efforts afoot in the town of Braintree to reign in the sale of liquor licenses on the open or black market, and instead making it easier (and much cheaper) for prospective licensees to simply obtain the license directly from the town. Certainly favors the mom-and-pop type shops, who cannot afford to pay six figures for a license. Of course, if there were no quota system at all (like in New York), this would not be an issue.

The Taunton Daily Gazette has a story on how the Taunton Police are getting tougher with sting operations and are on the hunt for liquor license violations and underage drinking. The state's Executive Office of Public Safety and Security has awarded a $9,700 grant to the Taunton Police Department specifically to combat underage drinking.

Apparently, renovations at the Linwood Mill are under way, and the upcoming Mill House Wine and Spirits will have a new addition to its business - a new liquor license.

At Monday night's Board of Selectmen meeting, an unanimous vote by the board appointed an all alcohol package store license to the upcoming business, which will be located on the first floor of Northbridge's Linwood Cotton Mill.

In order for the license to be official, the Mill House Wine and Spirits must have the license approved by the state ABCC.

Connecticut residents have a new reason to cross state lines in to Massachusetts. First it was cheaper gas, now it is cheaper liquor ---- Connecticut has raised its liquor tax by 20% effective July 1.

Employees at liquor stores like Phipps in Feeding Hills, Mass, which is near the state line, say that they have seen an increase in business.

"I don't go into Connecticut and buy it," Jamie Nielson of Suffield, Connecticut said. "It's literally not even a mile from my house so it's so worth it coming here."

Gas prices are also hovering over the four dollar mark in Connecticut.

When the Massachusetts Food Association, representing more than 600 stores in the state, asked voters in 2006 to allow wine to be sold in food stores, it triggered one of the most expensive ballot-question campaigns in state history, with opposing sides combined spending more than $11.5 million.

Last week, the Food Association took another shot at it by filing two ballot questions with state Attorney General Martha Coakley's office, one that would allow food stores to sell wine and a second to allow grocery stores and supermarkets to sell beer and wine, under local control, according to the Boston Globe.

The news of a possible second round in the wine-and-beer retail battle has sparked strong reaction from local merchants, wholesale liquor distributors, and residents.

Massachusetts, supermarkets need permission from their municipal government to sell beer and wine, and are not allowed to hold more than three permits in the state, limiting the number of chain grocery stores able to sell alcohol.

These restrictions create a real drawback for innovative breweries, said Joe Slesar, owner of Boston Beer Works, a restaurant and brewery with five sites from metro Boston to locations on the North and South shores, and Hingham Beer Works.

"I think change would be a positive thing,'' said Slesar. Boston Beer Works distributes its beer to a couple of hundred package stores in Massachusetts.

Boston.com reports that Some Foxborough residents already fed up with drunken rowdiness at Gillette Stadium are questioning a proposal to put a liquor superstore in the shopping center next to the New England Patriots' home.

The proposal is to transfer the license of a downtown liquor store to a retailer who wants open a large store at Patriot Place.

Patriot Place already has 13 establishments that serve alcohol, but no package stores.

Selectman Mark Sullivan says he's been hearing from a lot of residents but told The Sun Chronicle he won't comment further.

Selectwoman Lorraine Brue was quoted as saying that the proposal appears to fly in the face of efforts by Police Chief Edward O'Leary's efforts to fight drunkenness at the stadium.

Alcohol regulators in Massachusetts are wisely pulling back from a potential rules change that had small beer brewers across the state fuming.

The change approved last week by the state Alcoholic Beverages Control Commission would have required brewers operating under a so-called farmer-brewery license to grow at least half the hops and grains they use, or get them from a domestic source.

Regulators at the state ABCC said the change was designed in part to promote farming in Massachusetts.

Brewers protested, saying the change could harm their businesses or even force some of them to close.

Massachusetts Treasurer Steven Grossman announced Monday that the ABCC had decided to eliminate the rules change. Grossman said the commission would instead hold a series of public hearings to solicit comment from the public and brewers. Brewers welcomed the reversal.

Faced with the realization that Brookline is running out of liquor licenses, an advisory committee is recommending that the town either ask the state for more, or abolish the quota system altogether, the Brookline Tab is reporting.

The Board of Selectmen appointed the license review committee a year ago to address the shortage of available licenses as well as update the town's current 20-year-old laws regarding how beer, wine and liquor can be served in restaurants. The town does not license any establishments to serve alcohol without food.

Under the rules set up by the state's Alcoholic Beverage Control Commission, Brookline is now allowed 63 full and 12 beer and wine only licenses - about one per 1,000 residents. The latest Census earned the city one additional full license.

The Tab reports that town officials are worried that if they run out of licenses, there will be delays in opening new restaurants. Also, if no licenses are available from the town, the existing licenses will become a valuable commodity to be bought and sold between restaurants.

The Massachusetts Alcoholic Beverages Control Commission (ABCC) has denied the Idle Hands Craft Ales LLC application for a Farmer-Brewery license, because a farmer-brewer must "grow at least 50 percent, in the aggregate, of the quantity of cereal grains and hops needed to produce the anticipated volume of malt beverages."

According to beeradvocate.com, this decision seems to re-define the parameters for the farmer-brewer license, a type of license that a vast majority of production breweries in the state hold. The ABCC explicitly stated in the Idle Hands decision that, "the industry is put on notice that the Commission will be applying this ruling prospectively and, specifically, during the next annual renewal cycle to ensure that every applicant for a farmer-brewer license meets the state law definition of farmer-brewer by growing at least 50 percent..."

Given the ABCC's statement, all farmer-brewery licenses will likely come under the same scrutiny during the renewal time period (effective fall 2011 for 2012 licenses). No brewery will be grandfathered in.

A decision by the ABCC to force our farm to grow and malt grain will put our farm, and any farmer in the Commonwealth, out of the farm-brewing business," Bill Russell of Just Beer @ Buzzards Bay Brewing in Westport, MA, told beeradvocate.com.

What this means is that at least 50 percent of beer-making ingredients must be grown in Massachusetts. That would disqualify nearly every brewery in the state.

If Massachusetts state breweries are unable to meet the 50 percent mark of the Farmer-Brewery license, they will need to apply for the only alternative, a Manufacturer of Wine and Malt Beverages License. The Manufacturer license, however, does not allow breweries to sell beer at retail or do any tastings on site - one of the unique draws of the craft beer market.

It also forces breweries to utilize wholesale distribution channels which will result in potentially lower margins for the brewery (or higher costs to the consumer) and limited product distribution.

In addition, the farmer-brewery licenses are less expensive and less cumbersome to obtain than a full manufacturer license.

Another story on this topic

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