State legislators are considering a bill that would legalize home delivery of some alcohol products.
Senate Bill 2804, if passed, would allow package stores and delivery service providers to purchase $500 permits from the Alcoholic Beverage Control under the state Department of Revenue to deliver “beer, light wine or light spirit products,” the bill says. The bill will require a two-thirds majority vote to pass the Senate before going to the House of Representatives for a vote.
By state law, beer (up to 8 percent alcohol by weight), light wine (up to 5 percent alcohol by weight) and light spirits (up to 4 percent alcohol by weight) are coded and governed separately from “alcoholic beverages.” In Mississippi, grocery stores sell beer and light wine, while package stores sell light wine, which are the alcoholic beverages the bill refers to.
Either delivery services could obtain the permit and contract separately with package stores or other retailers to deliver the alcohol, or the package stores could obtain the permits themselves and hire their own employees to deliver the products, the bill reads.
Not all legislators from the Golden Triangle have seen the bill yet, but Sen. Chuck Younger (R-Columbus) and Rep. Rob Roberson (R-Starkville) both said the bill could be a boon to businesses and help keep inebriated drivers off the roads.
Younger said the bill is being backed by Birmingham, Alabama-based grocery delivery service Shipt, which currently does not deliver in the Golden Triangle.
“I’ll support it. I would support it more if individuals wanted to do it, instead of some company from out of state, but I’m going to support the bill because it won’t do anything but help business for the package stores,” he said. “If somebody wants some more liquor or wine and they’ve already had some, we don’t want them on the highway. So it’d be better for them to call somebody else to bring it.”
Roberson added the bill could particularly help retailers out during the pandemic, when the demand for home delivery of food and groceries is higher.
“I like it. … There’ll be a lot of opportunities for businesses, especially in this era of pandemics, to be able to operate and do business,” he said. “Of course I’m hoping this whole mess is behind us soon, but it looks like there’s a lot of good stuff here and would be very conducive to restaurants and other retail outlets to do businesses and maybe be a bit safer.
“Frankly if you’re concerned about having someone possibly on the road that may have been drinking, this would certainly help curtail that,” he added.
However, some package store owners say they didn’t know about the bill, and they don’t know how useful it would be for them. Scott Gault, owner of Scotty’s Wine and Spirits in Starkville, said liquor stores are one of the few industries that has actually increased their sales during the pandemic. He said he might use a delivery service such as Uber Eats to deliver to customers if that service obtained the permit, but he keeps so busy in the store he wouldn’t need it to turn a profit.
“I don’t know if we would deliver to homes,” he said. “We definitely would deliver to restaurants, and we can do that now. But we’re just so busy, it’s hard to do.”
Likewise, James Ervin, owner of Mike’s Package Store in Columbus, is concerned about the logistics of having customers pay from their homes.
“You get into it, if you take it somewhere, you have to have some way to pay for it,” he said. “I don’t take credit cards over the phone, because that’s too risky.”
He added it would be cost-prohibitive to obtain the permit himself, because in addition to the permit fee, he’d have to hire delivery people and pay for fuel costs.
Representatives from Shipt did not answer questions from The Dispatch by press time, and other area delivery service companies, including Lazy Guys in Starkville and Columbus To Go did not respond to calls from The Dispatch by press time.
Representatives with Vowell’s grocery store in Starkville and Sunflower in Columbus declined to comment on the bill.
Safety concerns
Rep. Cheikh Taylor (D-Starkville) declined to comment on the bill before he has read it.
Reps. Dana McLean and Lynn Wright, both Republicans from Columbus, also declined to comment specifically on the bill, saying they have not seen it yet. However, they both said they are concerned at how easy it could become for customers to obtain alcohol if the bill passes.
“I don’t believe I would be in support of an Uber-type delivery for alcohol,” McLean said.
Wright said he is concerned home delivery would make it easier for minors to obtain alcohol, even though the law specifies delivery drivers would have to check the customer’s age before leaving the alcohol with them.
“Once it’s at the house, it’d be party time,” Wright said.
The bill specifically says only sealed containers of alcohol can be delivered, that delivery services can only deliver in counties where the sale of alcohol is permitted and that permit holders must have “identification scanning software or a state-of-the-art alternative” to ensure the customer is 21 years or older.
Sen. Bart Williams (R-Starkville) said he hasn’t looked at the bill but that he wants to ensure that it balances safety with helping package stores and delivery businesses.
“It’s kind of a balance there,” he said. “We need to answer the questions about (safety) on one side, but if it enhances the quality of life, it makes it easier for our citizens, by all means, I would be for something like that.”
Sen. Angela Turner-Ford (D-West Point) and Rep. Kabir Karriem (D-Columbus) did not respond to calls from The Dispatch by press time.
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