Food News

To-go cocktails are here to stay in Massachusetts

The law has been in place temporarily since 2020. After years of extensions, lawmakers have made it permanent — with some tweaks.

By Katelyn Umholtz

May 1, 2024

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To-go cocktails are here to stay after Gov. Maura Healey signed them permanently into law Tuesday, as part of a supplemental budget bill that contained pressing amendments to fund the emergency shelter system.

There is one significant change to the bill that could impact some restaurants’ takeout programs: restaurants are no longer allowed to sell wine and beer for off-premise consumption, as they had been permitted to do during the pandemic.

Lawmakers may have seen this provision to the bill as a compromise between two fighting parties, the Massachusetts Restaurant Association and the Massachusetts Package Stores Association. The former wanted to-go cocktails to stay, saying it helped restaurants stay afloat during the COVID-19 lockdown. After the tweaked bill was approved by the House and Senate, Jessica Muradian, the organization’s director of government affairs, said they were “grateful” the decision to make the law permanent had moved through the legislation. 

“Our guests have become accustomed to ordering takeout,” Muradian said. “Cocktails to-go will continue to help restaurants that have participated over the last few years.”

But the latter organization said it was just another bill that impacted business at liquor stores, in addition to the statewide flavored tobacco ban, the mini liquor bottle bans in select towns, and the threat of the online lottery.

Boston.com reached out to the package store advocacy group, but did not hear back in time for publication. But in a previous discussion with Robert Mellion, the group’s executive director, he argued that it was unfair to allow restaurants to sell alcohol for on-premise and off-premise consumption, while liquor stores are only allowed to do the latter.

Another complaint the organization had with the previous temporary law was the amount of alcohol restaurants were allowed to sell for off-premise consumption, as long as a customer ordered one food item. 

“If it was just about a Mai Tai, it would just be one drink, not 64 ounces and 192 ounces of beer and two bottles of wine,” Mellion said. 

The new law no longer allows the 192 ounces of beer and two bottles of wine to be sold off-premise — though a separate, older law states that restaurants can recork a bottle of wine for patrons to take home — but an eatery with a liquor license can still sell up to 64 ounces of mixed drinks to go. That translates to about eight cups of a mixed drink.

The move to make to-go cocktails permanent marks Massachusetts as the 27th state to have such a law. Other states are considering making similar legislation permanent post-pandemic, according to a release from the Distilled Spirits Council of the United States, who also cheered Massachusetts lawmakers’ decision.