TOTAL WINE’S “DON’T LIKE A LAW, CHANGE IT” APPROACH IS WORKING
Source: Beer Business Daily
May 23, 2017
Total Wine isn’t the type to shy away from a state because of its alcohol regulations. Nope, the nation’s largest bev alc retailer moves where it wants to and if the state’s regulations don’t jive with the way they operate, well, they change them to their liking. And they’ve been pretty damn successful with this method.
Boston Globe reporter Dan Adams penned a recent piece on the retailer that details how the company “has successfully challenged longstanding alcohol laws in numerous states through a mix of litigation, lobbying, and rallying support from customers.
“It’s not unusual for a large company to use its legal and government affairs resources to change the status quo so its business model gets accommodated,” McDermott Will & Emery partner Marc Sorini told the Globe. “But Total Wine has been far more aggressive than most retailers, and they’ve won a number of important cases.”
HERE ARE SOME OF TOTAL’S “W’s”:
. Minnesota, Delaware, Georgia, and South Carolina didn’t allow Sunday sales when Total Wine moved in. Now, they do.
. Total Wine thought liquor stores closed too early in Connecticut, they’re now open an hour later everyday.
. Total Wine felt South Carolina’s cap on the number of licenses a retailer could hold was BS. So they challenged it. Last month the state abolished the cap.
. “And in its home state of Maryland, the company fought for 10 years to overturn a ban on retailers getting volume discounts, a battle that ended in 2009 with a court striking down the ban and other aspects of the state’s pricing rules,” writes the Globe.
That’s six states we just listed, that means Total Wine has helped sway legislation their way in more than a quarter of the states they’re in (20). And they’re hoping to add another a state to that list: Massachusetts, hence the Globe’s report.
TOTAL WINE’S NEXT BATTLEGROUND: MASS. As you may recall, the Massachusetts ABCC recently slapped sanctions on two of Total Wine’s stores after investigators determined the outlets were selling liquor below their wholesale costs, [see BBD 02-03-2017]. .
Total Wine promptly filed suit against the state agency, holding its longstanding claim that these kind of minimum pricing regulations protect their smaller competitors and consequently screw consumers.
IN ADDITION TO THE SUIT, news has come in that Total Wine will “also launch a public relations campaign” in Massachusetts “challenging a state rule prohibiting alcohol retailers from issuing discount coupons and loyalty cards,” per report. The company has reportedly already submitted its “proposed changes” to the state’s newly assembled task force, which seeks to “streamline the state’s alcohol laws.”
The Globe labels Total Wine’s upcoming campaign in Mass. as that of a “political-style” one, which seeks to gain favor with consumers, and says it’s a tactic they’ve deployed in many of the successful challenges to state laws noted above.
They’re pulling the same one-two punch of litigation and “political-style campaign” in Connecticut to try and do away with its minimum pricing regulations. The lawsuit there “is still pending,” according to the Globe.
Let’s see if this strategy continues to pay off.