GRAFTON – They are found among the weeds and along the edges of parking lots and curbs.
The little plastic bottles of liquor known as “nips.”
Several communities in Massachusetts have banned the sale of “nips,” including Newton and New Bedford.
Whether Grafton could join that list of communities was the subject of discussion during the Select Board meeting on July 25.
The board first brought up the topic on June 13, and the members decided to bring in some of the town’s liquor store owners for the July meeting.
The owners, including Manish Patel of Ultra Mart, made several points against the proposed ban, including littering and enforcing such a ban.
“We don’t think that banning nips will solve the litter problem. If you take nips away, you’re still going to have candy and chip wrappers, scratch tickets, cigarettes and coffee cups along our beaches and roads,” said Patel in a letter to the Select Board. “Let’s consider solutions that would actually clean up our town, like more recycling bins in these areas or more active enforcement of litter fines, rather than a ban on one product.”
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Several owners, including Patel, said that the sale of “nips” form a substantial part of their income.
“A nip ban would take away an important source of revenue for small businesses that are recovering after a challenging year. Nips account for up to 30% of a store’s sales and a ban could have substantial negative economic consequences,” said Patel. “People won’t stop buying or littering nips if you ban them — they will take their business to neighboring towns without bans.
“Many times, people buy nips close to their workplace or on their way home which can be out of Grafton town and litter in town. When people buy nips, they generally buy other products as well, which means we will also lose sales from additional items when people go elsewhere because we’ve stopped selling a product they like,” he said.
Better Bottle Bill
Instead of the ban, the board and the owners plan to send letters of support for a “better bottle bill” currently in the state legislature.
“Nips” would be added to the list of beverage containers that would have a bottle deposit.
The bills, filed by state Rep. Marjorie Decker and state Sen. Cindy Creem, would place a deposit on water bottles, vitamin drinks, and bottles for other drinks that were not part of the list when the law was first adopted in the 1980s.
It would also increase the deposit from $0.05 to $0.10.
The bill (H. 3690, S. 2104) is currently with the Joint Committee on Telecommunications, Utilities and Energy.
According to Town Administrator Evan Brassard, raising the deposit to $0.10 would lead to a much higher rate of redemption (up to 92 percent) than the current rate (about 42 percent).
“Nobody cares about a nickel anymore,” he said.
