Del. Marlon Amprey (D-Baltimore City) and Cailey Locklair, president of the Maryland Retailers Association, testify in support of Amprey’s bill to expand beer and wine sales into grocery stores and other retailers. (Photo by Bryan P. Sears/Maryland Matters)
Consumers could pay more for the convenience of buying beer and wine in grocery stores.
That was one of the amendments offered Monday by Del. Marlon Amprey (D-Baltimore City) to his bill to open beer and wine sales to grocers and other retailers, a measure that faced tough questioning in committee and faces a tough road to passage in the House.
“The goal here was to make sure that we think it through — how we can make sure that this committee feels as comfortable as possible,” Amprey told House Economic Matters Committee members, who spent more than two and a half hours debating his bill Monday afternoon.
House Bill 1379 would expand beer and wine sales to other retailers, including grocery, convenience and larger stores such as warehouse and so-called big box retailers.
Amprey said the proposal would modernize liquor laws in Maryland, one of just four states that do not allow beer and wine sales in grocery stores.
But opponents said the bill will upend the industry by bringing in larger stores who can undercut prices and eliminate the competition.
“Look this isn’t rocket science,” said Jack Milani, owner of Monaghan’s Pub in western Baltimore County and legislative co-chair of the Maryland Licensed Beverage Association. “If you have a pie and I cut it eight ways, then we all get an eighth. If I cut it 16 ways, we get a 16th. So unless you know you can grow this pie in a great way, we’re going to get hurt.”
Some said the life savings they put into their businesses would be lost.
Jaskinder Gill that after working 25 years for Pizza Hut, he sank $400,000 of his own money — bonuses and stock options earned at the restaurant — into a Prince George’s County liquor store. Gill, who emigrated to the US in 1985, said his savings “would be washed out because I don’t have any more 401k plan from somebody else.”
“This is my 401k plan — what you earn from the company for working for 25 years. And this story is not only me, it is many more behind us,” said Gill, referencing dozens who packed the committee room to oppose the bill.
Amprey dismissed such concerns as “sky-is-falling rhetoric.”
“These stores are not going to go anywhere,” he said. “No one’s going to immediately snap their fingers like Thanos, and all these stores disappear. That’s not going to happen.”
Amprey pointed to areas in Montgomery County, Baltimore City and the Eastern Shore where some grocery stores sell beer and wine, and in some cases liquor, under grandfathered licenses without driving traditional retailers out of business.
“We’re able to see local liquor stores doing great right next door, really, right next door to a store, within walking distance of the store, within the same corridor of the store. It’s already happening here,” he said.
A Department of Legislative Services analysis found that retailers licesed under Amprey’s bill would likely benefit from the ability to sell beer and wine, but that existing traditional liquor stores would likely lose business.
Amprey and representatives from the Maryland Retailers Association faced tough questions from the committee during a standing-room only hearing.
Del. Pam Queen (D-Montgomery) questioned Amprey’s assertions that expanding sales to grocery stores would have no effect on small businesses, noting that Montgomery County has more than 500 grocery stores while Amprey’s testimony highlighted just one store in Silver Spring.
“So, when you give me anecdotal data about one place that’s doing well, that’s not something a professor would look at for a reasonable conclusion,” said Queen, who is a finance professor at Morgan State University.
Amprey and his supporters offered a number of possible amendments to make the bill more palatable, including a requirement that retailers buy existing licenses to lessen the impact on small businesses and ease the proliferation of alcohol in communities disproportionately impacted by alcohol sales. Another would impose security standards for the new retail licensees, while a thired would impose a 5% surcharge on beer and wine purchases from retailers currently excluded under the law.
Amprey said the money from the surcharge could be used to incentivize grocers to move into food deserts — many of which are in the same Black and brown communities that have an abundance of access to beer, wine and liquor.
“The premise there is that if you are going to deliver convenience, to ensure that the cost of that convenience is captured, that we as a state can make some revenue off that convenience in order to support distressed communities that don’t have grocery stores,” Amprey said.
Amprey told the committee there is also a “dignity component” to his bill.
“I think about my community in West Baltimore, I would say 70% of the liquor stores there are not places where — I’ve talked to many women, including my wife, who don’t feel safe going in some of those liquor stores,” Amprey said. “I think that component of dignity, it’s also included in being able to purchase beer and wine after a long day. And some of these stores, unfortunately, are in predominantly Black communities. I don’t know why, but there’s a history where they don’t feel safe in these communities.”
Amprey said it can be off-putting to have to be buzzed into a store and make a purchase through bulletproof glass.
YOU MAKE OUR WORK POSSIBLE.
Efforts to pass the bill continue to have the support of Gov. Wes Moore (D) told Maryland Matters last year that he backed expanded beer and wine sales because it was widely supported by the public. Moore said then that he expected a bill “on my desk at the end of the session.”
The comment surprised and angered some legislative leaders. But Amprey said Monday that Moore still backs the effort, and a Moore spokesperson said “the governor’s position has not changed” on the bill.
Amprey’s bill faces other headwinds.
The proposal is one of the few in recent memory that united alcohol distributors, wholesalers and retailers in opposition.
“If there was a bill that we thought would increase our sales throughout the state, we would be supportive, but this bill does not do that,” said Nick Manis, a lobbyist for the Maryland Beer Wholesalers Association. “It might be for the short term. But at the end of the day, it would put our existing businesses who have been loyal to us for over 50 years — and we to them — out of business.”
The bill, which has no counterpart in the Senate, faces tough sledding in the House.
House Economic Matters Chair C.T. Wilson (D-Charles) continued to express concerns about the bill.
“From what I witnessed today and the questions from members, the committee does not seem to have much of an appetite for the bill,” Wilson said. “However, we will have a discussion to determine if there is anything that can or should be done.”
Wilson said the proposed amendments — which he has not seen in writing — are “all new ideas” that “open the door for further discussion.” Still, he seemed skeptical about its changes for reaching the full House of Delegates.
“I’m just not sure what is broken that needs to be fixed or what’s the urgency of having to do something now,” said Wilson, adding that energy issues are “taking so much bandwidth this session.”