New Maryland Health Insurance
Program
Offers Up to $5,000 Health Insurance Subsidy Per
Employee!
If you are a small employer with 2 to 9 employees
who work at least 30 hours per week (includes
owners) and have not offered employee health
insurance within the past 12 months, you and your
employees could each be eligible for an annual
health insurance subsidy of up to $5,000 each. The
amount of subsidy varies depending on the combined
average wage of your employees, requires 75%
participation of eligible employees and that the
majority of your employees work in Maryland. For
complete details regarding eligibility and subsidy
amounts visit the Maryland Health Insurance
Partnership website at:
mhcc.maryland.gov/partnership
Enrollment begins September 9, 2008 and is capped to
stay within the approved annual budget. If you
believe you are eligible, contact a health insurance
agent now to begin the application process.
FOR
IMMEDIATE RELEASE
CONTACT:
John Bodnovich
American Beverage Licensees
301-656-1494 bodnovich@ablusa.org
America’s Beer, Wine & Spirits Retailers
Celebrate 75th Birthday of the Three-Tier System Reject Activist Group’s False Claims About Wine
Deregulation
Bethesda, Md. – April 24, 2008 – With the
75th Anniversary of the repeal of Prohibition this April,
the American Beverage Licensees (ABL) is not only
celebrating the end of this failed experiment, but also the
75th birthday of the Three-Tier System. The effective and
efficient system of regulating alcohol beverages sales has
helped produce billions of dollars in revenue for the
federal government, states and municipalities; allowed state
and local governments to adapt laws and policies that best
reflect the values of their citizens; and most importantly,
introduced millions of consumers of legal drinking age to
beer, wine and spirits from different regions of the country
and every corner of the world.
“Thanks to the innovative producers and all-important
distributors of alcohol beverage products, retailers - those
last to handle beer, wine and spirits products before they
reach the customer - are extremely well served by today’s
Three-Tier System,” said ABL executive director Harry Wiles.
When it comes to alcohol beverage products, the selection
offered to American consumers is broader today than ever
before. Though much of this choice and variety has to do
with the increasing number of brands produced by alcohol
beverage manufacturers, this ever-widening selection of
products would not reach retailers and their customers were
it not for the hard work of alcohol beverage distributors.
“Walk into the average American liquor or package store, and
then walk into a liquor store anywhere else in the world.
Almost anywhere in the U.S. you can find wines and spirits
from every continent except Antarctica,” said Wiles. “The
U.S. has the most diverse and consumer-friendly beverage
alcohol marketplace in the world due to the cohesion that
exists between the three tiers.”
Despite the evolution and advances in the alcohol beverage
industry made over the past 75 years, there are still those
who wish to misconstrue the effectiveness of the Three-Tier
System. Peripheral activist groups such as the Specialty
Wine Retailers Association, speaking only for an elite cadre
of wine merchants, rather than the greater alcohol beverage
retail community they purport to represent, only serve to
blur and disparage the importance of proper regulation of
alcohol beverages.
“Comments about how ‘America's wholesalers have proven to be
a failure at providing retailers and their customers with
even a fraction of the wines available in the United States’
are simply not true and are misrepresentative of the
sentiments of the vast majority of retailers,” said Wiles.
Wiles added, “Any ability SWRA members have to provide
consumers with a wide range of products is derived directly
by the variety and selection provided by wholesalers.
“Retailers and their distributor colleagues are not
luddites. Technology is something that the alcohol beverage
industry is embracing. Whether it is inventory software
programs, fully-integrated POS systems or ID scanners to
verify a customer’s age, the industry is on the cutting
edge,” said Wiles.
“The past fifteen years have shown that the Internet holds
vast opportunities for commerce, but we should not let those
possibilities blind us to the fact that alcohol is a unique
and age-restricted product; states have the ‘unquestionably
legitimate’ right to regulate its sale and distribution; and
tearing down an effective system of regulation will increase
the costs associated with getting products to market and
handling the administrative, bureaucratic and regulatory
issues.”
Bricks-and-mortar retailers, who pay local property and
sales taxes, are an important link in the alcohol beverage
system and assets to their communities. If shadowy,
unregulated networks for alcohol sales undercut these
legitimate businesses, the losses in jobs, tax revenue and
public safety would be staggering.
The same is true for alcohol beverage distributors who
provide thousands of products to retailers and also ensure
product safety and product integrity on the way to the
marketplace. By centralizing distribution, they reduce the
costs of that process to both suppliers and retailers, and
pass those savings on to the consumer.
In New York State, for example, there are some 19,000 wine
products and almost 10,000 spirits products posted with the
state and available to every retailer. This means thousands
of manufacturers around the world make use of the
distributor tier to get their products to consumers.
“The fact is, the great majority of retailers in this
country feel very well served by their distributor friends,
both in terms of selection and in terms of the raw dollar
value distributors bring to the marketplace,” said Wiles.
“Wholesalers provide efficiencies and functions that benefit
suppliers, retailers and the consumer.”
ABL looks forward to another 75 years of consumer choice,
cost-effectiveness and a strong Three-Tier System.
About American Beverage Licensees (ABL)
American Beverage Licensees (ABL) is the preeminent national
trade association for retail alcohol beverage license
holders across the United States. Its members, who number
nearly 20,000, are comprised of on-premise and off-premise
retailers who annually help infuse billions of dollars into
the American economy. ABL represents the interests of
American small business owners and a historical part of the
American way of life. Many members are independent, family
owned operators who assure that beverage alcohol is sold and
consumed responsibly by adults. ABL serves as a way for
beverage alcohol retailers nationwide to bring their
combined wisdom and strength to bear on the challenges each
face daily.
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE CONTACT: John Bodnovich 301-656-1494
States’ Rights to Regulate Alcohol Sales Endorsed By
Supreme Court
“All or nothing” direct shipping decisions to be
determined by states
Bethesda, MD (5/18/05) – The Supreme Court on Monday
reaffirmed the right of states to regulate the sale and
distribution of beverage alcohol within their borders but
also ruled to level the playing field for in-state and
out-of-state beverage alcohol producers.
The 5-4 ruling reaffirmed the Three-Tier System of beverage
alcohol sales and distribution as “unquestionably
legitimate”. The decision struck down laws in Michigan and
New York that held in-state and out-of-state producers to
different standards for directly shipping beverage alcohol
to consumers.
Writing the majority opinion, Justice Anthony M. Kennedy
said that by having different standards for the two parties,
these states were in violation of the Commerce Clause of the
Constitution. Despite the existence of the 21st amendment,
which repealed Prohibition and explicitly enumerated the
rights of states in beverage alcohol matters, the majority
found that alcohol must be treated as any other commodity so
as not to impinge upon the nondiscrimination principle of
the Commerce Clause.
In a dissent, Justice John Paul Stevens argued that the
decision seemed to be largely based on economic
considerations rather than stricter Constitutional
interpretation, stating that the Court’s decision “is not,
however, consistent with the policy choices made by those
who amended our Constitution in 1919 and 1933.”
Justice Stevens went on to acknowledge that if beverage
alcohol were not a substance of such unique nature, that it
would clearly be governed by Commerce Clause standards. To
that end he added, “our Constitution has placed commerce in
alcoholic beverages in a special category” thus keeping it
from the reach of Commerce Clause.
“While we are pleased that the Court upheld the rights of
states to regulate the sale and distribution of beverage
alcohol, we are eager to see how state legislatures and
regulatory groups might modify their laws in accordance with
the decision,” ABL Executive Director Harry Wiles said.
States that currently treat in-state and out-of-state
producers differently are faced with a choice of prohibiting
direct shipping altogether or opening their doors to
out-of-state direct shippers and allowing them to operate
under the same guidelines as in-state direct shippers.
Retailers, the last people to handle products before they
are consumed, are the final link in a system that promotes
responsibility. It is face-to-face transactions that
retailers are proud of and hope will be preserved by their
state governments.
About American Beverage Licensees (ABL) American Beverage Licensees (ABL) is the nation's largest
trade association dedicated to representing the
interests of “America's Beer, Wine and Spirits
Retailers”. ABL represents nearly 20,000 bars,
restaurants, taverns, and liquor stores, including
off-premise licensees in the "open" or "license" states
and on-premise proprietors in markets across the
country. Today, ABL has members in 348 of the 435
Congressional Districts across the nation. For more
information about ABL, please visit
www.ablusa.org
By: Joseph A. Schwartz, III
MSLBA
Lobbyist
On
September 15th, MSLBA plans to file an Amicus
Curiae Brief (Friend of the Court Brief) in the
United States Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals in
Richmond, Virginia.This amicus brief will support the State
of Maryland in a case known as TFWS, Inc. v. The
Comptroller.TFWS
is a corporation owned by David Trone and operates a
large (20,000 square feet) liquor store in the Towson
area.
Trone filed suit against the Comptroller claiming
that two Maryland laws violated the Federal Antitrust
law.After
a number of court battles (this appeal is the third time
the case has been before the Federal Appellate Court in
Richmond), Trone was successful in having the United
States District Court for the District of Maryland in
Baltimore declare the two Maryland laws as being in
violation of the Federal Sherman Act.The two laws in question are the (1) post and hold law which
requires distilled spirits and wine wholesalers to post
a price and hold it for 30 days and (2) the law that
provides that wholesalers may not provide volume
discounts.
MSLBA’s brief will concentrate on the volume
discount provision which MSLBA believes is extremely
critical to small retailers.Indeed, the MSLBA brief argues that this is one
of many laws that protect the “mom and pop”
establishment against the mega retailers.Other examples are the Maryland laws which
specify that a person may only hold one license and that
a license may not be held at all by a supermarket or a
chain store.
The real losers if Trone is successful will be
retailers who purchase relatively small amounts of
distilled spirits and wine.Predictably, this includes most bars and
restaurants, which will see, increased prices.And, while MSLBA’s brief will concentrate on
the volume discount law, please note that, without a
“post and hold” law, it will be very difficult to
monitor whether volume discounts are being offered on a
uniform basis.
In
the trial court, Trone reversed field from arguments he
made before the Maryland legislature a few years ago.In the General Assembly, he had argued that the
“volume discount” ban raised prices and that, if it
were repealed, the prices would go down.The Legislature turned him down so he turned to
the courts.In
court, he argued that the volume discount ban did not
work and that, actually, Maryland prices were lower than
Delaware prices; Trone also operates two stores in
Delaware which does not have a volume discount
prohibition.The
judge ruled in his favor and against the State’s
argument that the Maryland laws promoted
“temperance” by actually increasing prices over
neighboring states.
Thus, the case is in a very odd position and many
of the issues that will be raised in the MSLBA amicus
brief have not been carefully considered.It remains to be seen whether the appellate court
will allow MSLBA to participate (a motion to file the
brief must be granted) and, further, whether the MSLBA
arguments will be accepted at this juncture (there have
already been three proceedings before the trial court in
Baltimore and this is the third appeal to the appellate
court in Richmond).
MSLBA believes that it was important to
participate because Trone’s success presages potential
legal attacks on other Maryland laws which have had the
favorable effect of supporting “mom and pop”
retailers. Maryland has a unique retail industry,
generally consisting of small, locally owned
neighborhood establishments and MSLBA believes this
uniqueness should be preserved by defending the laws
that make it possible.
