Could Connecticut consider an all-out ban on ‘nip’ bottles? ‘The litter is not improving’

They’re sold by the millions in Connecticut, but some state lawmakers say that the nuisance caused by miniature bottles of liquor — commonly known as “nips” — has gotten so bad that it’s time to consider banning their sale at the local level.

A bill raised by members of the Legislature’s Environment Committee this week would allow cities and towns to vote to ban the sale of liquor bottles under 50 ml in size, which are often found discarded along roadsides, beaches, public parks and even in people’s yards.

The move comes just three years after lawmakers first sought to address the problem by adding a 5-cent surcharge to the sale of nips, with the money going to fund environmental stewardship programs in the cities where the bottles were sold.

“I don’t think if you were to ask any municipality whether they would give back the money they’re getting from the nips, they would say yes, so I wouldn’t say it’s not working,” said state Rep. Joe Gresko, D-Stratford, who helped lead the passage of the surcharge in 2021.

“But the litter is not improving,” he added.

Since the law went into effect, more than 179 million nips bottles have been sold in Connecticut, providing nearly $9 million in revenue toward municipalities, according to sales tracked by the Wine and Spirits Wholesalers of Connecticut.

The head of the industry group, Larry Cafero, called the program a “fantastic success,” that has helped fund street sweeping programs, litter collection and the placement of garbage bins in parks and other public areas.

Still, Cafero conceded that the bottle’s tiny size leads to a “culture of concealment,” where buyers down the liquor and quickly chuck the empties. “They’re all over the place, no doubt about it,” he said.

Rather than allowing towns to implement local bans, Cafero said lawmakers should improve the existing program by strengthening oversight on the local initiatives being funded by “nips” sales, adding that some towns have yet to reveal any information on how the money is being spent.

“No town is an island where if you ban it, it just won’t exist,” Cafero said.

Gresko, who serves as chair of the Environment Committee, said leaders in a handful of towns have expressed interest in banning nips, even if it means forgoing the money from the surcharge. Interest in a ban in particularly strong in Glastonbury, where some residents have begun a campaign against the more than 850,000 bottles sold across town since 2021.

Tom Gullotta, a Democrat who chairs the Glastonbury Town Council, said he expects to have enough support to pass an ordinance banning nips if the bill becomes law.

“It doesn’t do anything about the core problem, which is that you’re selling shots at a very affordable price, that are easily hidden, that are quick to consume,” Gullotta said of the surcharge.”T he container is then literally landscaped along the street.”

Gullotta also rebuffed opponents who say that consumers would simply bring in nips from neighboring towns, arguing that most are chucked within a couple of hundred yards from the stores where they are purchased.

In neighboring Massachusetts, five towns have voted to ban the sales of nips, according to WPRI. Lawmakers in Rhode Island have introduced repeated efforts to doaway with the sale of nips altogether, without success.

Due to their small size, Cafero said that nips bottles are nearly impossible to recycle effectively. For that reason, the only state with a bottle-deposit program accepting 50 milliliter bottles is Maine.