MONTGOMERY — The ABC Board will begin charging a roughly 2% credit card fee to wholesale customers on July 1.
David Peacock, legal counsel for the ABC Board, announced the new fee at the board's meeting on Wednesday. He said the fee was the same percentage that a credit card processing company charged the ABC Board.
"Effective July 1, the credit card fee that we have to pay to the credit card processor that we use increased to, I believe, 2.033%. An administrative business decision was made on the wholesale purchases to pass that through. It's a direct pass through; it's not anything more than what we're being charged, which is 2.033% per wholesale customer. If they want to avoid that cost, they have ways of avoiding that cost. They can pay with other methods. In fact, the only way that they would have to pay that is if they want to use a credit card. Debit cards, other methods, Fintech, all of that there would be no charge for that," Peacock said at the meeting.
The new fee wouldn't apply to individual retail customers shopping at ABC Stores. The fee would apply to wholesale purchases made by customers, such as package stores, restaurants and bars, from the ABC Board.
Brandon Owens, executive director of the Alabama Beverage Licensees Association, said at the meeting, "I guess we're a little concerned by why is it now that we have to start paying for credit card fees? It's sort of just come out of nowhere, and we got three weeks' notice to do it."
"For several of the package stores, bars, and restaurants, this is a disruption in their business plan. This has sort of come up on us as a big surprise. It's definitely going to slow down our purchases and it's probably going to impact a lot of the sales the ABC Board makes," Owens said.
David Dean, an owner of two package stores in South Alabama, said at the meeting that the new fee was discriminatory because it only applied to wholesale customers and not retail.
"I'm a wholesaler. I have no other choice except to purchase from you. I like to use credit cards. I do not like to fool with cash. I do not like to use a check. I love to use credit cards. I've been using them ever since we've been in business, and I love to use credit cards," Dean said. "It's not fair to make one customer, and I am your customer, that's what I am… I'm your customer, pay a fee, and not make anyone else pay a fee. That's not right. That's not fair. That's discrimination, anyway you want to look at it. Like I said, I've been doing this a long time, and I do a heck of a business, and I don't charge my customers, and I don't think you should charge your customers."
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