Malloy Supports Sunday Suds

From Chris Keating, Hartford Courant:

In a move that could change Connecticut’s liquor landscape, Gov. Dannel P. Malloy will propose allowing Sunday sales of beer and alcohol at package stores and supermarkets.

The change must be approved by the state legislature, which has repeatedly rejected the idea over the years.

Malloy has changed his position from last year on the highly controversial and heavily lobbied issue. He had said that he would sign a bill for Sunday sales if it was passed by the legislature, but he would not take any positive actions to make that happen. As such, Malloy remained on the sidelines last year, and the bill failed once again.

The difference this year would be a proposal–with the strong backing of the governor’s office–to change the long-running state law. The bill’s chances of approval will now improve immensely because many members of the Democratic-controlled legislature routinely vote to approve proposals by the Democratic governor.

Carroll Hughes, the chief lobbyist for the Connecticut Package Stores Association, stresses that the prohibition on Sunday is a state liquor law, not a “blue” law. The blue laws were outlawed in Connecticut more than 30 years ago, allowing the sales of automobiles and numerous other consumer products on Sundays.

Some insiders expected that Sunday alcohol sales would be approved last year because of Malloy’s pledge to sign the bill. But Hughes said that Malloy had kept his word in remaining on the sidelines during last year’s battle. As such, the package stores lobby was able to beat back the bill in the same way as in the past.

Malloy’s senior adviser, Roy Occhiogrosso, said that Malloy made his decision after reviewing the liquor laws and practices in surrounding states of New York and Massachusetts.

“What’s driving his perspective on this is that same issue of keeping Connecticut competitive with other states,” Occhiogrosso told Capitol Watch on Friday afternoon. “For too long, Connecticut just stopped competing. He’s doing this for the consumers as well.”

Before deciding how much the state income tax and other taxes would be increased last year, Malloy checked the tax rates in New York and other states. He repeatedly mentioned that analysis during the months leading up to the tax increase–saying that he wanted to keep a lower marginal income tax rate than states like New York and New Jersey.

Malloy will make his announcement on changes in the alcohol laws at 1:30 p.m. Saturday at Enfield town hall–just down the street on Route 5 from the Massachusetts border.

After intense lobbying on both sides last year, the issue was blocked once again as a key committee avoided a direct vote on changing the law. The lack of action by the general law committee was important because bills under the committee’s authority needed to be acted upon by the committee’s deadline.

Even though he won last year, Hughes said he knew the game was not over. Behind the scenes, the pro-Sunday sales supporters were talking about a possible move right until the end of the legislative session.

“There’s always the ninth inning,” Hughes, a baseball fan, said last year. “A lot of people don’t take no for an answer here.”

Jay Hibbard, vice president of the Washington, D.C.-based Distilled Spirits Council of the United States, came to Hartford last year to watch the committee’s deliberations. His organization, as well as the Connecticut Food Association, has paid for full-page newspaper advertisements to push for Sunday sales. Hibbard predicted at the time that Connecticut would continue to lose sales–and tax revenue–as residents drive to surrounding states to buy beer and wine on Sundays.

“It happens every week on every side of the state, and those that have a boat are probably crossing over Long Island Sound to buy there,” Hibbard told The Courant last year.

After some procedural maneuvers, the general law committee failed to approve the Sunday sales legislation because the two Democratic co-chairmen–state Sen. Paul Doyle of Wethersfield and state Rep. Joseph Taborsak of Danbury–didn’t place the bill on the committee’s agenda.

Doyle said the issue had been given a public hearing for the first time by the committee, and the chief advocate, Rep. Kathleen Tallarita, did not have the votes by the night before the meeting, when the committee’s agenda had to be posted in advance of the meeting. It was decided if the votes were not secured by the previous evening, it would not be placed on the agenda–and that’s what happened, Doyle said.

Tallarita, an Enfield Democrat who has become the most outspoken supporter of Sunday sales, said she was not deterred by the committee’s lack of action. Enfield is a border town, and its most outspoken package store owner, Dominic Alaimo, says he has lost business to Massachusetts stores on Sundays.

The estimates of the amount of additional tax money that could be generated from Sunday sales has varied widely–and has become a key part of the ongoing debate. Hughes says the increase would only be about $100,000 because, he says, sales would be spread over seven days, instead of six, and there would be essentially no increase in overall sales. Tallarita, by contrast, says that Sunday sales would generate $3.5 million to $5 million of “easy money” per year that would not involve any tax increases in a difficult budget year.

Tallarita and Hughes disagreed over every aspect of the issue, including the meaning of a Quinnipiac University Poll showing that a majority of voters favor Sunday sales. Hughes said some consumers are not aware of the adverse consequences of Sunday sales, which he says would increase costs so much at the low-profit package stores that as many as 300 stores could go out of business.

The poll question received overwhelming support because the adverse consequences were not mentioned, Hughes said.

“It’s like asking people if they like free beer,” Hughes said. “I don’t think you’re going to get a negative answer.”

Although the Sunday sales ban has been repeatedly described through the years as a “blue law,” Hughes says that is clearly incorrect. State historian Walter Woodward has noted that a blue law was the name given to laws that were considered harsh and unreasonable in the 1600s, and the word “blue” refers to the severity of the punishments. The laws considered blue laws today, he said, might not date back that far.

In 1979, the Connecticut Supreme Court ruled that the state law that required certain stores to close on Sundays was unconstitutional. It noted that the blue laws, codified in 1650, had been regularly modified since 1902. The court concluded that the laws were arbitrary and discriminatory because two-thirds of the state’s workforce was allowed to work on Sundays.

Besides Tallarita, Alaimo and others, Sunday sales have received support from Edward Stringham, a professor, economist and alcohol researcher. Stringham is co-author of a book titled, “No Booze? You May Lose: Why Drinkers Earn More Money Than Nondrinkers.”

Stringham’s study said that men who drink earn 10 percent more than nondrinkers, and that women who drink earn 14 percent more than nondrinking women.

“Keeping these customers in Connecticut on Sundays means more tax revenue for the state,” Stringham wrote in The Courant.