Key members of the Alabama Alcoholic
Beverage Control Board include, from left,
Randall Smith, Product General Manager;
Rickey D. Mobley, Board Member; William E.
Thigpen, Assistant Administrator; H. Mac
Gipson, Administrator; Samuetta H. Drew,
Board Member; Robert W. "Bubba" Lee, Board
Chairman; and Nick Ketter, Product Director.
By Cheryl Ursin
T
he Alabama Alcoholic Beverage Control Board
(ABC) has plenty to celebrate.
By September of 2012, according to the latest figures,
its total sales, both retail and wholesale, were projected to
be over $378 million for the year, an increase, in dollar
sales, of almost 5%. (Case sales were up 2.3%.) And its
contributions to the state budget are on track to reach
almost $210 million, an increase of 6.7%.
The 912 employees of the Alabama ABC continuously look for ways to innovate: cutting business
expenses, running their wholesale and retail operations
more efficiently, working on their service to and relationships with customers, licensees and suppliers, and
honing their enforcement and education efforts.
Wholesaling & Retailing
T
he Alabama ABC controls all the wholesaling and
most of the retailing of distilled spirits in the state.
Its two warehouses at its headquarters in Montgomery
generally contain about 250,000 cases of distilled spirits (300,000 at peak times like the holiday and football
seasons) and ships those cases out, at the rate of 10
trailerloads, or about 45,000 cases, per week, to the
state stores. Those 172 stores, in turn, sell to consumers and also to licensees, including the state's
approximately 535 licensed package stores.
Allowed to open by a court ruling in the early '80s,
these licensed package stores can sell distilled spirits, as
well as other products, such as beer, snacks and ice. (The
state stores sell only spirits.) These package stores fill a
niche in the market, explained Randall Smith, who, as
the ABC's product general manager, is in charge of the
state stores. "We are the supermarket and they are the
7/11," he said. The package stores can be open longer
hours, but their prices for distilled spirits are generally
higher than those in the state stores. (Package-store
licensees buy their distilled spirits from the state at a
10% discount on consumer prices and without sales
tax.) During a recent television interview, on a local PBS
news show called "Capitol Journal," H. Mac Gipson,
the ABC's administrator, pointed out that in the town of
StateWays I www.stateways.com I January/February 2013
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