Just Four Examples of How Montgomery County’s Local Liquor Control Uniquely Protects County Consumers from Dangerous Products

Over the years, Montgomery’s Local Liquor Control has declined to list and offer certain products that were deemed to be irresponsible, potentially dangerous or otherwise problematic.

Several of those products later proved to be not only controversial, but actually unacceptable for one reason or another, and were withdrawn or dropped from the market.

A few examples:

  1. “Four Loco” – a high volume (24-ounce can), high alcohol content, high energy drink content beverage targeted at younger consumers. A college student in St. Mary’s County, MD died after consuming large quantities and there were numerous public health problems reported across Maryland. The same was true nationally. The Maryland wholesalers eventually stopped distributing the product and took it off the market in Maryland. It was never an issue in Montgomery County.
  2. ”Spykes” by Anheuser-Busch. This was a sweet, flavored alcohol product in colorful small (3 to 4 ounce) plastic containers that almost looked like nail polish packages. Spykes came in several flavors. It was designed to be added to beer to create “flavored beer.” The fear was that they were easily concealed, sweet and looked like something that may go into a lunch box. We chose not to list this item in spite of heavy lobbying from Anheuser-Busch. (A-B eventually pulled the product from the entire market and ceased production.) It became a “lightning rod” issue for public health and youth safety advocates. Montgomery County has also refused to carry other similar alcoholic products that are packaged in small, plastic cups with pull-off foil tops -- such as pre-made jello shooters—that could pass for lunch box items.
  3. “Blanco Basura” (translated as “White Trash”) – this product was a six pack comprised of five 12- ounce beer cans, and a sixth 12-ounce can of either tequila or whiskey. The idea was to have five servings of “a shot and a beer chaser” in each six pack. We don’t carry this.
  4. “Suck & Blow Shooters” – plastic tube pouches of alcohol that can be frozen like “ice pops” or made into portable jello-type shooters.

In these cases, and others, Montgomery County was uniquely able to keep products targeted at underage drinkers from being sold in the County – despite pressure from the liquor industry.

Just one more reason why Montgomery’s Local Liquor Control makes sense.