Packie owner ticketed for moving beer
Transferred stock between two stores
A package store owner moving booze from one shop to another got a slap on the wrist after cops saw a picture of the burgeoning load of beer on Twitter, but lawmakers are looking at a proposal that would jack up fines more than 500 percent for similar infractions.
Naveen Kapoor, owner of the Quality Market in Brighton received a warning from the city’s Licensing Board yesterday for illegally moving alcohol between stores and transporting excessive amounts of alcohol without a permit. He faced a fine as high as $2,500 under a system of state alcohol regulations designed to protect special interests, a government watchdog said.
“What harm to society occurs because someone who owns a liquor store wants to move alcohol from one store to another?” said David Tuerck, executive director of the Beacon Hill Institute.
On March 28, Boston police saw a photo on Twitter of a man loading multiple 30pack cases of Corona, Pabst Blue Ribbon, Miller Lite and Modelo into a Ford Explorer outside of the Quality Market and found out the SUV belonged to the store.
Kapoor told the Licensing Board he was transferring the beer to his other store, Quality Liquors in Allston, after it ran out of several beers. But the store did not have a license to transport more than 20 gallons of beer — about seven 30-packs — and transferring alcohol from one licensed business to another, even under the same ownership, is against the law.
“In the licensing world, it’s one of the most egregious infractions you can commit,” said John Connell, an attorney who specializes in alcohol licenses, adding both that and violating the 20-gallon rule cut against the state’s long-standing “threetier” system where manufacturers are only authorized to sell to wholesalers, who are only authorized to sell to retailers.
A task force to reform the state’s liquor laws has recommended increasing the penalty for transporting excessive alcohol from $2,500 to $15,000.
A spokeswoman for Treasurer Deborah B. Goldberg said the state’s Alcoholic Beverages Control Commission was reviewing the task force report and any changes would have to be made by the Legislature.
Tuerck said legislators should loosen the law instead and change the entire structure of alcohol regulation.
“This is all part of protecting a three-tiered system, this is obsolete in today’s market,” Tuerck said. “It’s another example of somebody’s ox getting gored in order to protect a special interest against the consumer.”