Official defends liquor contract award

AUGUSTA – A state official who helped award Maine’s wholesale liquor distribution contract to a Massachusetts firm said the company succeeded on the merits of its proposal and not because of a slanted review process.

In the final hours of a two-day appeal hearing on Tuesday, Richard Thompson, chairman of the bid review committee, said Martignetti Cos. offered an existing Web-based ordering system, in-store support service personnel for the state’s liquor agents and an attractive process for delivering and collecting payment.

“Experience in the existing business was important to the panel,” he said.

Tuesday was the end of an appeal hearing requested by MaineCentric of Auburn and Maine Liquors, a subsidiary of Pine State Trading Co. of Augusta. The companies are appealing the state’s decision to offer the 10-year, $125 million deal to Martignetti.

Both MaineCentric and Maine Liquors bid for and lost the deal.

The appeal panel now has 15 days to send a decision to the state’s Bureau of General Services. If Maine Liquors or MaineCentric are not happy with the outcome of the hearings, they can file an appeal in Kennebec County Superior Court.

Two distilleries and a distilleries trade organization also intervened in Tuesday’s appeals, citing that the Department of Administrative and Financial Services sped up the bid review process in order to get a $75 million deposit in state coffers.

During closing arguments, attorneys for the groups that want the bid process reopened restated concerns about the review committee’s failure to make specific rules to guide the process.

“In all of this, the rules never got made,” said Gerald Petruccelli, who represents M.S. Walker and White Rock Distilleries, two liquor makers who sell products in Maine.