Put liquor lobby in its place: Ban nips and boost competition

Now that Connecticut’s 5-cent tax on tiny “nip” liquor bottles has done little to remove their litter from streets and roadsides, state Rep. Joseph Gresko, D-Stratford, plans to propose legislation to allow municipalities to ban the sale of the troublesome product.

The “nip” bottle tax, paid by liquor distributors to municipal governments in proportion to the number of “nips” sold in each city or town, has financed local environmental-protection initiatives, but none aimed directly at the “nip” litter problem. This month’s increase in the bottle deposit fee from 5 cents to 10 cents won’t help either, since “nip” bottles can’t be recycled, being too small for the machinery in use.

So empty “nip” bottles never can be anything but trash, and full “nip” bottles are good mainly for consuming liquor while driving.

That’s why the legislation to be proposed by Gresko, House chairman of the General Assembly’s Environment Committee, won’t go far enough. Larger municipalities that have many liquor stores and “nip” sales, and thus substantial revenue from the “nip” tax, will let “nips” continue to be sold, while only small towns with few if any stores and few “nip” sales will ban them. The reduction in “nip” litter and drunken driving would be small.

So why not outlaw “nip” sales altogether on a statewide basis?

THE EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR OF the Wine and Spirits Wholesalers of Connecticut, former state Rep. Larry Cafero, offers two reasons — one implausible, the other venal.

Banning “nips,” Cafero says, could lead to banning sales of alcoholic beverages in larger containers or alcoholic beverages favored by underage drinkers.

But the complaints about “nips” are not about alcohol generally but about litter and drunken driving, and Connecticut may be the least Puritanical state in the country, with “mom and pop” liquor stores on every other corner and marijuana shops striving to catch up.

The venal reason Cafero offers is the liquor industry’s far bigger concern: that banning “nips” would contravene the “expectation” liquor store operators had when they got into the business — the expectation that they would be able to sell “nips” forever and that state government never would interfere with their privileges, like the state law against liquor price competition.

That is, in the opinion of the liquor industry, eliminating a terrible litter problem and reducing drunken driving aren’t worth the risk to the industry’s profits, and nothing wrong in the law should ever be fixed if someone is making money from it.

State government long has been subservient to the liquor industry, since the law against liquor price competition insures that there are many stores in each legislator’s district, sustaining an influential special interest. Awful as “nip” bottle litter and drunken driving are, few people will complain to their legislators about it, but most liquor store operators in the state will mobilize immediately against any attempt to put the public interest ahead of their interest.

A ban on the sale of “nip” bottles in Connecticut would be unusual but not unique. Sale of “nips” has been outlawed in New Mexico, in part because that state has the country’s worst alcoholism problem as well as spectacular vistas that are often disgraced by heaps of beer and liquor bottles discarded carelessly by drunks even as they marvel at God’s work.

Connecticut should follow New Mexico’s lead — in the name of environmental protection and highway safety as well as to show the liquor industry that the public interest must come first.

And if the General Assembly can muster that much courage, it also should pass legislation allowing supermarkets to sell wine in addition to the beer they already sell. To reciprocate, the legislation also could authorize liquor stores to sell groceries.

Many states not subservient to the liquor industry allow supermarkets to compete by selling wine as well as beer, and the public interest in the convenience of it is overwhelming. Even with the liquor industry put in its place, there still will be many special interests for legislators to pander to and seek campaign donations from.