Opinion: 'Nips' An Important Source Of Revenue For Small Business

Submitted by community member Michael Bogolawski. All opinions are the author's own.

As the owner of Colonial Liquors in Pawtucket, which has been in business for over 60 years, I understand what it means to be part of a community. I grew up in Pawtucket and I’ve seen my friends, neighbors, and customers work together to solve problems and support each other in countless ways over the years. For that reason, I think we’re uniquely positioned to tackle the issues that affect us in a way that the state government is not.

One such issue is litter. The Rhode Island House of Representatives is currently considering a bill that would ban miniature alcoholic beverage containers, also known as “nips,” as a way to prevent litter and drunk driving. While I completely agree with the motivation of the Representatives sponsoring the bill, what they aren’t able to see from their seat in Providence is how this ban would impact mom and pop shops like mine—without actually solving any problems.

Banning nips would take away an important source of revenue for small businesses that are recovering after a challenging few years. Nips can account for up to 35percent or more of store sales in Rhode Island and a ban could result in a painful loss of revenue. Additionally, when people buy nips, they generally buy other products too; stores will also lose sales from other items when people go elsewhere because we’ve stopped selling a product they like. And people will go elsewhere—Rhode Island is a small state; people will simply take their business across the border to states where they can buy the products they want. This is exactly what was seen in the case of one-off bans in towns in Massachusetts.

Beyond the negative economic impacts of a ban, it’s not clear how it would actually solve the problems of littering and drunk driving. As we all know, litter consists of far more than just nips and changing the size of a bottle will unfortunately not prevent someone from drinking and driving. At the heart of this bill is the desire to change people’s behavior, but these behaviors are already illegal across the state. Perhaps this would be an issue better solved by focusing more on enforcing those existing laws, and less on slightly limiting consumer choice and hoping for the best.

My store is in a dense, low-income neighborhood. Around 90 percent of my customers walk to my store, and nips are an affordable and viable product option for them. My customers have said many times that if nips are banned, they will jump in their cars and drive 7 minutes into Massachusetts to buy them there. This is a problem: if passed, this legislation would turn walk-in customers into drinkers that are driving.

As engaged members of our communities, retailers in the wine and spirits industry have already started working on local-level solutions that we think will have a lasting impact on these problems. We are committed to increasing customer education around littering, adding convenient recycling containers at our stores, and organizing regular cleanups in our towns to pick up all trash—not just nips. Additionally, we have always trained our staff to never sell alcohol to someone clearly under the influence, a responsibility that we take very seriously. We think that solutions like these help communities increase their sense of responsibility and ownership, without any negative knock-on effects.

For this reason, I urge Rhode Island Representatives to work with their communities to find solutions that we know will work instead of voting for a bill that will harm us.