How Not to Violate Pay-to-Play Ban in Massachusetts

It’s easy.  Just give equipment to retailers.  But don’t transfer title to the retailer.  And use a third party – even if that third party is your wholly owned subsidiary.

That’s how Anheuser-Busch got around Massachusetts’ anti-pay-to-play rules.  And the state ABC Commission just ruled it was perfectly legal.

The third party was August A. Busch & Co., a Massachusetts beer distributor wholly owned by Anheuser-Busch.  A-B kept legal title to coolers and draft “towers” or taps worth $942,000 to 441 retailers in 2014 and 2015.

Commission staff had found that “Anheuser-manufactured alcohol beverages were required to be stocked in the draft towers and coolers.”  But the ABC’s three commissioners said that there wasn’t any pay to play because title to the equipment never passed to the retailers.

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