A Six Year Fight To Reinstate Alcohol License

The call came in when I was on vacation, while I was relaxing by the pool with my family, The caller said this was an emergency.  The new client was the owner of a small-town convenience store. His livelihood and family’s future was on the line, He was the underdog.  What I could not anticipate was the number of appeals, emergency stays, and bureaucratic hoop-jumping we would face together over the coming six years of litigation.

My client was a family-run convenience store in the town of Grafton, located in Worcester County.  The convenience store had a package store license to sell alcohol. In April of 2013, a police sting operation sent in an underage person to buy beer or wine. She was not carded by the staff, however, and succeeded in buying the alcohol. Unfortunately, this was not the first time such a violation had occurred at the convenience store. 

The customary penalty for this infraction was a few days’ to a few weeks’ suspension of liquor sales. In August of 2013, however, the Grafton Board of Selectmen voted to revoke the convenience store’s license entirely. The owner then had only a few days to make an appeal to the Massachusetts Alcoholic Beverage Control Commission (ABCC);  It was at this point that I received the emergency call and the convenience store became my client.

My new client had made mistakes. We never denied that and offered to take steps to make his sales more transparent and accountable. Our contest was with the unusually harsh punishment the business received, even compared to other Grafton vendors with similar violation histories. Four months later, following an administrative hearing, the ABCC agreed that my client should have its license reinstated. However, because of an archaic quirk of Massachusetts law, the ABCC had no authority to compel Grafton to reinstate the license on a first appeal. The selectmen refused to reinstate the license. After another six months and second appeal, the ABCC forced the town of Grafton to reinstate my client’s license. 

By now it was early 2015 and my client had been deprived of income from alcohol sales for over a year. While this should have been a neat and tidy end to the case, it was only the beginning of continued breaches of due process by the town of Grafton, designed to single out my client. Despite my client abiding by all laws after the ABCC reinstated the license, the town purposefully failed to send out an application to renew his license before the annual deadline of November 30^th.  

A third appeal to the ABCC was denied,  The ABCC chastised the town for not following the procedure mandated by the law, thereby denying his due process rights under the US Constitution. The ABCC said, however, that it could not restore my client’s license because the renewal deadline had passed, even though the ABCC ruled that the town had thwarted my client’s ability to renew the license. The Selectmen, alone, could return my client’s license. They refused.

In other cases, the ABCC and the Superior Court ruled that while the ABCC could reinstate a license that had been denied, it was only the town that had the authority to renew a license.

At this point, I was angry, not just on behalf of my client, but for him as a person. I was not going to let bureaucracy ruin his livelihood for a mistake others had been forgiven. He had spent five years of his life trying to put things back on track, facing what I can only describe as personal vindictiveness from the local authorities. It was a real David-and-Goliath situation.  Being named ‘David,’ that’s never been a fight I shy away from.

I filed an appeal to the Superior Court, There were multiple hearings where I successfully rebuffed attempts by the town for emergency stays to delay the reissuance of the license. These included an appeal to a Single Justice to the Appeals Court by the town that was denied, Even after that, the town would not give up. It refused to begin the process to restore my client’s alcohol license, At this point I filed a Complaint for Contempt against the town of Grafton for willfully refusing to comply with multiple orders to reinstate the license. Their refusal to obey the court’s order was costing my client greatly in legal fees and lost profits.  His reputation had also been damaged.

The Superior Court scheduled a trial on the Contempt action.  When faced with financial and legal exposure, counsel for the town and I agreed to a financial settlement of the case.. This was on the eve of trial. My client’s license was reinstated on the condition he put in new accountability measures. These included security cameras at the register and upgraded computer equipment to identify illegitimate forms of identification.  This was to keep alcohol out of underaged hands.

After six years, my client was able to run his business. For me, I had the satisfaction of knowing that I had helped an underdog overcome superior odds and restore a sense of justice.

If you have trouble obtaining an alcohol license in any city or town in Massachusetts, or running into a problem holding an existing alcohol license, call me.  I will fight for you.