A recent MLCC On The Road outreach event at Detroit City Distillery. Front left to right: Neal Insley, President of NABCA and Chair Kristin Beltzer. Rear left to right: David Marvin, Director MLCC Executive Services Division and Sara Weber, Director, MLCC Licensing Division.
says.“ And then what happens is the people that we help tell other people. Next thing you know, those other people reach out to us, too. So, it’ s really become a network of positivity.
Not every time can the MLCC find a solution to a business’ problem, but Beltzer explains that the most important thing is to try.
“ Sometimes what we’ re trying to accomplish isn’ t going to work, but we can certainly try and figure out a way to do it and help them,” she says.
Yet another instance in which the MLCC came to the aid of a business in need was when the owner of Sugah Please Brunch Bar in Detroit approached Beltzer about opening another location in Grand Rapids.
“ I live in Grand Rapids, so she talked to me about opening up another entity in that location,” Beltzer explains.“ I got on the phone right then and there and called a guy I know to make that happen. Since then, the two of them have met, and soon her second location will open.”
Sugah Please is expected to open its second location in Grand Rapids in the fall of 2025, introducing soulful brunch and cocktails to West Michigan.
“ We’ re really happy about that,” Beltzer says.“ For us to go out and for the team to be open to people and let them know that we’ re trying to help them accomplish their goals, it makes me feel really good about the work that we’ re doing.”
Through these personable works of service, the MLCC proves just how much they’ re willing to help the businesses in their community. The team doesn’ t just stand there and proclaim their good deeds � they’ re actively out in different neighborhoods, building relationships with people and trying to help answer their questions.
THE MLCC ENTERS THE 21ST CENTURY
Aside from helping licensees sort out their new business plans, the MLCC also prioritizes sales, inventory and purchasing of beverage alcohol products. On November 3rd, 2025, the organization implemented a whole new Sales Inventory Purchasing System called SIPS +.
SIPS + replaces the MLCC’ s previous sales, inventory and purchasing program that was more than 40 years old, as well as the registration programs for spirits( Equote) and beer, wine and mixed spirit drink products( MWPR).
The new program provides the MLCC with greater functionality, flexibility and control in its finance, inventory and product registration.
“ We’ ve been working on this system for at least the last couple of years,” explains Beltzer.“ Our old system is just not adequate anymore for us to be able to manage. We need to make sure that our system is monitoring everything correctly and that it’ s handling the complex orders and the number of products that we have.”
According to Beltzer, Michigan has about 15,000 different beer, wine and spirits products, which is a lot to manage.
“ This new system not only brings us into the 21st century, but it also gives us greater accountability and the opportunity to have oversight, which is very important for us,” she says.
To keep things running smoothly, the MLCC began communicating with licensees on the new system weeks prior to its launch.
“ There’ s also information on our website about the new system and what it’ s going to look like in terms of navigating everything,” Beltzer says.“ Again, it’ s really important to keep communication open with them so they know what’ s coming. We want to make sure they understand and where they can go if they experience any problems.”
Now that the new system is finally live, the MLCC has other innovative plans in store for 2026, to continue to better the beverage alcohol industry within the state.
While Beltzer can’ t share every plan that the MLCC is working on, she’ s hopeful they can do more work with companies, similarly to how they worked with Proximo Spirits in the past.
The spirits company owns 1800 Tequila, which is the official tequila of the Detroit Lions. In 2023, Conrad Haremza, senior regional director at Proximo Spirits and Michigan Spirits Association director, called the MLCC to see if the organization would be open to creating a Detroit Lions logo for the 1800 Tequila collaboration.
“ I said,‘ Sure, but let’ s sit down with the team and figure out what we need to do,’” Beltzer explains.“ So, we sat down with them, talked to our finance division and came up with a SKU for them. This way, the new product wouldn’ t be confused with the other 1800 Tequila’ s they have.”
This also allowed Proximo Spirits to track the sales of the new Detroit Lions tequila bottle.
“ By October or November of 2023, they sold out of all of their cases before the end of the year and had to order more,”
12 StateWays • Winter 2025 www. stateways. com