Malloy Backs Sunday Sales of Alcohol
by Christine Stuart | Jan 13, 2012 1:23pm
(7) Comments | Commenting has expired
Posted to: Business, Jobs, State Capitol
(Updated 4:42 p.m) Gov. Dannel P. Malloy, who sat on the sidelines last year as the legislature debated and defeated a bill to allow Sunday alcohol sales, will be endorsing the idea this year, according to sources.
Malloy is expected to announce on Saturday at Enfield Town Hall that he wants to allow package stores to sell alcohol on Sundays and will allow them to stay open until 10 p.m., instead of 9 p.m.
Under the package of proposals, restaurants and bars will be allowed to stay open until 2 a.m. every day of the week, if they choose. Currently, they are only able to stay open until 2 a.m. on the weekends. And Malloy will be lifting regulations on how alcohol is handled by distributors, wholesalers, and retailers.
Sunday sales has been debated by the General Assembly for years, but successful lobbying efforts by package store owners has thwarted its passage in the past.
House Minority Leader Lawrence Cafero, R-Norwalk, said the issue has never fallen along party lines, and his caucus is split on the issue.
“Very controversial issue, good points made on both sides,” Cafero, who tends to lean toward allowing Sunday sales, said Friday.
He said the governor’s support of the issue may be the “tipping point” that allows its passage this year.
The proposed changes are in line with Malloy’s desire to keep the state of Connecticut competitive with surrounding states.
Massachusetts establishments are allowed to stay open until 2 a.m. every day and package stores in the commonwealth are open on Sundays.
Some argue Connecticut lost business to Massachusetts when they eliminated the sales tax on alcohol in 2010. Then just last year Connecticut increased the excise tax. It was the first substantial tax increase on alcohol in 20 years and was expected to raise $9.9 million each year over the next two fiscal years. There’s no indication Malloy is looking to eliminate that tax. Instead, he’s seeking to make the industry more competitive by eliminating some of the pricing regulations. He will detail those proposals on Saturday in Enfield, which is home to Rep. Kathy Tallarita, one of the biggest proponents of Sunday sales.
Sources say the proposal will bring in millions of additional revenue to the state, but it’s unclear at the moment exactly how much additional revenue the state will see from the changes.
Last year, the Office of Fiscal Analysis estimated that if stores were allowed to be open on Sunday alcohol sales would increase 2.8 percent, and the state would see an increase of $2.4 million in sales tax and $1.2 million in excise taxes. In 2009 a Program Review and Investigations report on a similar bill estimated the measure would bring in between $7 million and $8 million.
No matter how much additional revenue the proposal brings in, it’s likely the public will embrace it.
According to a March 2011 Quinnipiac University poll residents support Sunday sales 66 to 31 percent. That’s the highest level of support ever for this question, up from 56 - 39 percent March 18, 2010.
Carroll Hughes, a lobbyist for the Connecticut Package Store Association, has been beating back Sunday sales proposals for decades.
Hughes said Friday that over the past year the association has been looking at whether there’s certain days it pays to be open. He said he’s not opposed to opening on some Sundays, but there are Sundays, which wouldn’t be winners for the package stores.
“All Sundays is not something we would embrace because it could increase costs to the stores,” Hughes said. But “It’s a starting point. We certainly would work with him.”
As for later hours, Hughes said they discovered that when it went from 8 p.m. to 9 p.m. the customers who came to buy at 7:50 p.m. in the past, came to buy at 8:50 p.m. when the hours were changed. He said it didn’t make much of a difference in sales during the week, but later weekend hours may prove promising.
Hughes testified last year that Sunday sales will put an estimated 300 to 350 of the state’s 1,100 package stores out of business. He’s was also leery about how much it will help much with the state’s bottom line.
“There is no revenue here or the revenue is minuscule at best,” Hughes said last year during a public hearing on a Sunday sales bill.
Hughes told the committee he did his own research on the issue and found that $1.5 million in additional sales would have to occur in order to generate $141,333 in revenue for the state.
Hughes has also expressed concern that if Sunday sales are allowed 20 percent of beer sales will move from local package stores to the grocery stores.
Tags: Sunday sales, alcohol, taxes, Gov. Dannel P. Malloy, package stores, Carroll Hughes
(7) Comments
posted by: Terry D. Cowgill | January 13, 2012 4:43pm
Hooray. Maybe now it will happen and the dumbest law in the land will finally be gone. Hughes’ argument seems to be that lifting the ban will be bad for his clients. Not very compelling stuff.
posted by: ... | January 13, 2012 6:09pm
You’re right Terry. Considering this has been much of his life, losing the battle would be a bit of a blow to his efforts and credibility.
Let them choose if they want to open. Many stores worry about losing competition to grocery stores, but they already lose out to hundreds, possibly thousands of citizens who cross state lines or visit restaurants that can already serve alcohol on Sunday when they would rather purchase and drink in their own homes.
posted by: gerardw | January 13, 2012 6:50pm
Good. Too bad Malloy appears to be doing it for the $$ instead of the simple fact there’s no reason for government to restrict commerce.
posted by: Edward_H | January 14, 2012 4:18am
This article raises two questions in my mind:
It was the first substantial tax increase on alcohol in 20 years and was expected to raise $9.9 million each year over the next two fiscal years.
How much was actually raised after the tax increase?
Are there any other states which saw store closures once Sunday alcohol sales were allowed?
posted by: Smit | January 14, 2012 12:41pm
Its funny that he’s standing at a bar. Bars will certainly be affected if packys are open on sunday. This seems to always be driven by the consumer and legislator and not the package store owners. I suspect hes going to legalize marijuana next. Might as well, it will help assure as will keeping the packy open that our police and hospitals are kept busy.
posted by: PsiCop | January 14, 2012 1:58pm
The real issue underlying all this—which none of the parties involved here is even hinting at, much less mentioning—is freedom. This is the United States, and it’s the 21st century. Forcryinoutloud, it’s long past time to dispense with colonial Puritanicalism and move into an age where grown adults entitled to buy & sell alcohol are free to do so whenever they wish.
It very well could be that Malloy’s motivation here is to get added money for the state (and there WILL be some; it’s incontrovertible that some Nutmeggers go over state lines to buy after 9 or on Sundays). Sure, it’s a greedy motivation, but so what? It remains the right thing to do. Complaining about Malloy’s mercenary motivation is just unthinking partisanship, and isn’t worth anyone’s time.
Carroll Hughes’s two main points, that the Sunday ban is not a “blue law,” and that grocery stores will put all the package stores out of business, are both laughable on their faces. Of course we’re talking about a blue law! Absolutely. No doubt! And since the packies will retain their monopoly on wine and liquor sales, there’s no way one can rationally say the packies will all go under. Grocery stores literally cannot compete with them in those two product lines.
