State regulators will hold a hearing on a proposed ban on small liquor bottles next week.
Gov. Paul LePage says he wants to ban the sale of the bottles, known as “nips,” because they contribute to drunk driving. The bottles have also been associated with a littering problem.
Opponents say the proposed ban is nothing more than retaliation by LePage for a veto override this past session.
The prolonged debate over the merits of a five-cent deposit on 50-milliter liquor bottles officially ended last month, when lawmakers rallied to override the governor’s veto of the proposal. But now the governor wants the Maine Liquor and Lottery Commission to ban the sales of nips in the state to reduce not only incidents of littering, but also drunken driving.
Republican state Rep. Lance Harvell of Farmington said he is skeptical.
“If it was always about drunken driving, why didn’t he outlaw these before? That would be my take,” he said.
Harvell sponsored the bill to expand the deposit law to nips, which he said came in response to constituent concerns about an escalating litter problem, as thousands of the little bottles were being strewn along the shoulders and ditches of Maine roads.
But Greg Mineo, director of the Bureau of Alcoholic Beverages and Lottery Operations, or BABLO, says the explosive sales increase across the state is also directly linked to an uptick in drunken driving violations.
The state’s law enforcement community has yet to weigh in on the debate, leaving BABLO in the position of trying to ban a product it once promoted. And BABLO acknowledges that sales of the small liquor bottles have gone from a half a million bottles in 2007 to nearly 8.5 million last year.
Those are serious numbers for retailers such as Bob Wentworth, the owner of the IGA grocery store in Rangeley, who opposes the ban.
“The littering is an issue, it surely is, but as far as affecting me directly, it’s just going to mean lost sales as far as I can tell,” he said.
And there are also jobs at stake. Sazerac Co. of Lewiston bottles nearly two thirds of all nips sold in Maine, according to industry analysts. In submitted testimony to the liquor commission, the company estimated that its 130-person workforce would be at risk if the bottles were banned — along with a proposed $1 million expansion of its facilities.
Other retailers, such as the Maine Grocers and Food Producers Association, said they fear that Maine consumers might start driving to New Hampshire to buy nips if they can’t get them in Maine. And at the Distilled Spirits Council of the United States, spokesman Jay Hibbard says his organization opposes the ban in principal, but asks for consideration for his constituents if it goes forward.
“If the commission decides to concur with the BABLO recommendation, we hope that they will give all of the suppliers the opportunity to exit the market, if that’s their option, in a reasonable time period,” he said.}
And Hibbard said that a ban should be timed to take effect after Dec. 31, 2018 — nearly a year later than the timetable suggested by the LePage administration.
The Liquor and Lottery Commission hearing is scheduled for Tuesday at the Augusta State Armory.
This story was originally published on July 6, 2017, at 5:30 p.m. ET.