Court Rules Total Wine Can't Offer Steep Liquor Discounts In MA

BURLINGTON, MA — Total Wine & More, the national liquor store chain with six locations in Massachusetts, can't sell liquor to customers at prices below the published wholesale price, according to a ruling issued Wednesday by the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court. The state's highest court overturned a Suffolk County Superior Court ruling and ruled in favor of the Massachusetts Alcoholic Beverages Control Commission, which first brought a pricing complaint against Total Wine in January 2017.

"In view of the plain language of [state laws on liquor pricing], and the commission's need to effectively and uniformly enforce its own regulations in accordance with its legislative mandate, the commission's decision was not arbitrary and capricious or otherwise unreasonable," the court said in its ruling.

Maryland-based Total Wine sued the commission after it received several one-day suspensions for two stores for selling certain brands of liquor, including Smirnoff vodka and Bacardi rum, to consumers for anywhere from $1 to $6 below wholesale prices. But Total Wine said it was actually selling the liquor for above wholesale prices when discounts from distributors for large orders and prompt payments were calculated into the final wholesale price.

In July 2017, Suffolk Superior Court Judge Robert B. Gordon ruled in favor of Total Wine.

"There was clearly no predatory pricing carried out in this case, only a salutary effort by a retailer to pass along savings derived from volume purchasing at the wholesale level to its customers," Gordon wrote in his decision.

But the state's highest court disagreed in its ruling Wednesday, noting that the liquor industry's complex invoicing practices, in which invoices are frequently rewritten with discounts added in after the initial purchase, made it difficult for the commission to meet its mandate.

"We do not think it unreasonable for an agency with limited resources to prioritize administrability in order to 'avoid . . . continuing uncertainty that would inevitably accompany any purely case-by-case approach like the one [Total Wine] advocates,'" the court said.

In addition to a victory for the commission, Wednesday's ruling is seen as a win for smaller liquor stores, which have struggled to match prices offered by their much bigger rival. The commissions original ruling came when Total Wine operated stores in Everett and Natick. Since then it has added locations in Braintree, Burlington, Danvers and Shrewsbury.

Dave Copeland writes for Patch and can be reached at dave.copeland@patch.com or by calling 617-433-7851. Follow him on Twitter (@CopeWrites) and Facebook (/copewrites).