Cumberland Farms, Julio's Liquors at odds on liquor-sale ballot question
Photo | Grant Welker
Cumberland Farms' store on East Main Street in Westborough
Two Westborough companies, convenience store chain Cumberland Farms and retail store Julio's Liquors, are facing off on a potential ballot question going before voters next year to allow food stores to sell liquor.
Julio's owner Ronald Maloney Jr. is one of seven liquor store owners who have sued Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey, arguing her office wrongly allowed a ballot question to ask voters whether grocery stores could sell liquor, which would dramatically expand the number of places where shoppers could buy beer, wine or spirits.
Cumberland Farms is not a party to the lawsuit but is named repeatedly by the liquor stores in the court filing as a proponent of the ballot question. The chain, which has more than 500 locations across the Northeast and Florida — including more than 200 in Massachusetts — has pushed for a gradual increase in the cap on a number of locations where a convenience store chain can sell alcohol.
“On the 100th anniversary of prohibition, many local food stores still can’t sell beer and wine,” Matt Durand, the head of government affairs for Cumberland Farms, said in a statement in August, when the ballot question proposal was submitted to Healey's office. “It’s time to change these archaic laws in a safe and thoughtful way, and if we need to take that to the ballot, I think the voters will agree.”
Each entity is now able to hold only seven licenses, though that number will rise to nine by Jan. 1. Under a proposal submitted to Healey's office, that ceiling would rise to 12, then 15 and then 18 by the start of 2021, 2022 and 2023, respectively. By 2024, the cap would be lifted entirely.
The proposal is being fought by an alliance of small liquor store owners across the state. Julio's has been joined by the owners of Sav-Mor Spirits and Greenwood Wine & Spirits, both north of Boston, Four Seasons Wine & Liquor in Hadley, Wine ConneXtion in North Andover, Reservoir Wine & Spirits in the Boston area, and Deerfield Spirit Shoppe in the Berkshires.
The store owners' lawsuit, among other arguments, calls the ballot question incoherent. That's because, among other things, it would both increase the number of places where alcohol could be purchased, yet also put in place stricter age verification processes for those buying alcohol, including asking for verification no matter the age of the customer.
“The Massachusetts Constitution puts strict limits on ballot initiatives in order to ensure that only single, clear questions of public policy are presented to voters," said Benjamin Goldberger, a partner at Chicago law firm McDermott Will & Emery, which is representing the Massachusetts Package Stores Association.
"This initiative combines a series of unrelated questions sure to cause exactly the sort of voter confusion that the framers of the ballot initiative process were trying to avoid," he said.
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