Court: Massachusetts can keep the King of Beers from becoming the King of Malt Liquors and Distilled Spirits

In a victory for local liquor wholesalers, the Masschusetts Appeals Court ruled today the state can bar an Anheuser-Busch subsidiary from branching into hard liquor sales in Massachusetts.

In a ruling that hinged on the meaning of the word "such" in a state liquor law, the court upheld a 2007 decision by the state Alcoholic Beverages Control Commission to revoke a permit that had let August A. Busch & Company of Massachusetts, Inc. wholesale non-yellow beverages in the state after more than 60 years as simply a beer distributor. The company rapidly took business away from local companies, which filed a complaint with the commission, and the commission revoked the company's right to sell other forms of alcohol.

The ruling parses out what the legislature meant in 1971 when it passed legislation defining who could sell what sort of booze in the Bay State. That law basically grandfathered in companies that already had permission to sell more than just beer:

The 1971 Legislature was presumably aware of the two distinctive wholesaler licenses and could have used the alternative wording if it had intended it. More telling, though, is the Legislature's expression that an out-of-State manufacturer or supplier not be forbidden "from continuing to hold a [wholesaler] license ..., provided that such license" was issued before January 1, 1966, and that the licensee had paid the required prior excise taxes. The words "continuing" and "such" necessarily refer to a specific antecedent. The only antecedent fitting that requirement is the pre-existing beer and wine license. As the Commission points out, the demonstrative adjective "such" is a limiting, not an enlarging, modifier.

Complete ruling.