ABL DISPATCH — THE LATEST INDUSTRY NEWS FROM WASHINGTON

BY JOHN BODNOVICH, ABL EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR

ABL celebrated its 21st anniversary of representing independent on- and off-premise beer, wine and spirits retailers at the ABL Annual Meeting June 10-11 in St. Louis. The ABL board elected four new officers, including Terry Harvath as vice president of on premise. Harvath, no stranger to ABL leadership, is also a TLW past president and owner of The Wishing Well Bar & Grill in Appleton.

The ABL Annual Meeting leaned into its location — directly across the street from Busch Stadium, home to the St. Louis Cardinals — with the theme “Swinging for the Fences,” underscoring the messages of meeting speakers who shared information and ideas on how beverage licensees can boost their businesses, their state associations and their industry.

ABL celebrated beverage retailers and leaders at the meeting for their achievements. The ABL Top Shelf Award recognized Wisconsin native Jim Ryan, senior vice president for Constellation Brands, who is concluding a 47-year career in the beer industry, and has been a longtime supporter of ABL and its members. ABL also honored Mark Rehwinkel of Cusack’s Pub in Marinette, with the TLW’s 2023 Retailer of the Year awards for his excellence in advocacy, responsible sales and service, community engagement and support of the TLW.

Meeting attendees heard from an array of speakers from both the public and private sectors who covered a wide range of topics. Industry economist Lester Jones shared his insights on both macroeconomic issues and industry-level economic topics. Stephanie Badger of the Merchants Payments Coalition briefed the audience on the newly introduced Credit

Card Competition Act and how beverage retailers can engage members of Congress with grassroots lobbying.

Two security-related presentations — one from the “OG of Cannabis Security,” Tony Gallo, and another from Robert Smith, the CEO of Nightlife Security Consultants — discussed how high-risk businesses should implement security measures, and how they can and should prepare and plan for an active shooter situation.

From the industry trade association world, Bill Young, the senior director of health policy and regulatory affairs of the Beer Institute, discussed the evolving public health policy landscape for alcohol, whereas Wine & Spirits Wholesalers of America general counsel Jake Hegeman presented on the current legal climate, as well as federal trade practices and cannabis legislation. Chris Shepard, a senior editor at Beer Marketer’s Insights, closed the conference by opening up his reporters’ notebooks to discuss a wide range of topics making headlines, and how they are being reported in trade media and perceived by the public.

In addition to conference support from e-commerce solutions provider City Hive and Molson Coors, meeting attendees participated in a tour and tasting experience at the AnheuserBusch Brewery, where they learned about the history of the brewing icon. The meeting also featured the support of 25 leading distillers and spirits brands.

ABL hosted two educational webinars this spring, both of which were recorded for ABL members to watch at a time convenient to them. They include:

• Understanding the Digital Landscape for Beverage Retailers, which ABL’s newest associate member, Provi, hosted exclusively for members on May 9. The webinar offers an opportunity to better understand the digital and e-commerce landscape for beverage retailers, and provides a walk-through of Provi’s free solution, which simplifies the alcohol ordering process.

• The ABL Economic Impact Refresher, detailing how ABL members can effectively use the ABL Economic Impact Report. ABL hosted John Dunham & Associates, an economic research firm, for this refresher webinar on April 12. It reviews how to access, navigate and use the report that lays out, in detail, the jobs, taxes and overall economic impact of retail alcohol sales at the federal, state, Congressional district and state legislative district levels.

With the debt ceiling fight now over and an economic crisis averted, the Congressional agenda will loosen up with the next major red-letter dates for activity coming with a twoweek July 4th recess over the last week of June and first week of July; and the longer summer recess from the end of July through Labor Day. This means that Congress has six full work weeks for the rest of the summer.

There remains a must-pass agenda that includes 12 spending bills that Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) said will be passed on the House floor and not lumped into an omnibus spending bill. The annual defense authorization bill and a massive farm bill that has implications for agriculture and nutrition programs are also in need of legislative action.

For “smaller” legislation, there has been plenty of work happening behind the scenes, and now there is oxygen for other legislation to be introduced. That includes legislation that ABL supports and opposes.

June 7 saw the introduction of the Credit Card Competition Act (CCCA), a measure that would provide relief from billions of dollars in rapidly rising swipe fees that drive up prices for consumers. The measure is being sponsored by Sens. Richard Durbin (D-IL), Roger Marshall (R-KS), Peter Welch (D-VT) and J.D. Vance (R-OH), and by Reps. Lance Gooden (R-TX), Zoe Lofgren (D-CA), Thomas Tiffany (R-WI) and Jefferson Van Drew (R-NJ).

Durbin and Marshall first unveiled the measure last July, and an identical companion bill was introduced in the House in September by Gooden and Welch before Welch was elected to the Senate. The 2021-2022 session of Congress ended before the bills could see a vote, but action is expected in the current session.

The CCCA would address swipe fees averaging over 2% of the transaction that banks and card networks, like Visa and Mastercard, charge merchants to process credit card transactions. Credit and debit card swipe fees have doubled over the past decade, soaring by $22 billion in 2022 alone to a record $160.7 billion, and are most merchants’ highest operating cost after labor, driving up consumer prices by an estimated $1,024 a year for the average family. As a percentage of the transaction, credit card swipe fees automatically go up as prices rise, creating a multiplier effect on inflation.

The measure seeks to lower swipe fees by ending Visa and Mastercard’s monopoly over how transactions on credit cards banks issue under their brands are routed for processing. Under current practice, Visa and Mastercard centrally price-fix the fees and restrict routing of the transactions to their own networks. But the bill would require that cards from banks with $100 billion or more in assets be able to be processed over at least two unaffiliated networks — Visa or Mastercard, plus a competitor like NYCE, Star or SHAZAM, or even American Express or Discover.

Banks would decide which networks to enable, but merchants would then choose which to use on individual transactions, meaning networks would have to compete over fees, security and service, saving merchants and their customers an estimated $11 billion a year.

Consumers would still use the same Visa and Mastercard cards they now use, rewards would not be affected, and community banks and small credit unions would be exempt.

In addition to lowering fees, the bill would improve security. Independent networks have less fraud than Visa and Mastercard’s networks, according to the Federal Reserve, and the bill would bar networks controlled by foreign governments like China’s UnionPay from American credit cards. Any bank could put China UnionPay on its credit cards right now with no legal restrictions, but the bill would close that loophole.

On May 31, Rep. Lloyd Smucker (R-PA) reintroduced the Essential Workers for Economic Advancement Act. The bill would “amend the Immigration and Nationality Act to provide for an H–2C nonimmigrant classification” as a means to address hospitality industry staffing challenges by creating a program of non-immigrant three-year visas for workers. ABL supports the bill, as workforce issues continue to beleaguer hospitality industry businesses.

Rep. Dan Newhouse (R-WA) introduced the United States Postal Service (USPS) Shipping Equity Act on May 25. The legislation would allow alcohol to be shipped through the mail. ABL continues to urge Congress to oppose legislation that would undermine the 21st Amendment and erode public safety mechanisms inherent in state-based alcohol regulation. ABL is circulating a letter to all members of Congress asking them to abstain from cosponsoring the bill. TLW

ABL is the voice of America’s beer, wine and spirits retailers in Washington, D.C. ABL represents the TLW and its many members, as well as thousands of other on- and off-premise retailers of beverage alcohol across the United States.