Hospitality and Alcoholic Beverage Industries

Since its inception, the firm has been dedicated to the practice of alcoholic beverage and hospitality law. The firm represents some of the world's largest suppliers, wholesalers, and retailers of alcoholic beverages based in the United States and abroad. These clients include:

  • importers
  • brokers
  • shippers
  • common carriers
  • distributors
  • wineries
  • breweries
  • distilleries
  • department stores
  • convention centers
  • supermarket chains
  • restaurant chains
  • bowling alleys
  • retail package stores such as liquor stores
  • warehouse club chains
  • wine shops
  • convenience stores
  • on-premises consumption establishments such as restaurants, bars, and pubs.

We represent clients across the nation, at the federal, state, and local levels, including before the U.S. Department of the Treasury's Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau (TTB), and the U.S. Department of Justice's Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF). In Georgia, we also represent clients before the Department of Revenue, and before City Councils, County Commissions, local license review boards, and zoning departments from all tiers of the system for regulation of beverage alcohol to ensure licensing and regulatory compliance generally.

Our work encompasses franchise regulation (including proceedings concerning notices of intention to change wholesalers), trade practices regulation, promotions regulation (including regulation of point of sale materials and consumer specialty advertising), brand and label regulation, trademark, taxation (including excise taxes and sales-and-use taxes), importation, and related real estate, leasing, and landlord-tenant matters.

We also handle related Federal and state court litigation such as constitutional and antitrust challenges (such as Commerce Clause and Sherman Act) to the three-tier system for regulation of alcoholic beverages, and constitutional challenges to differential taxation of imported alcoholic beverages (such as Commerce Clause and Import Export Clause).

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