Just a few months ago, shelves at Levure Bottle Shop in Jackson were full of wines that can be hard to find in Mississippi. 

Now, shelves are empty and customers come in asking if the store is closing. Owners put a sign outside that says, “Not going out of business … still waiting for the ABC to deliver.” 

Mississippi’s alcohol industry is in crisis due to operating changes and delays at the state-run Alcoholic Beverage Control warehouse through which most alcohol in the state has to pass. Over the last month, package stores and restaurants have struggled to fill their shelves and owners are worried. It’s not just impacting small businesses such as Levure. Casinos and restaurants across the state are also waiting for orders. 

With officials saying the warehouse expects to clear half its backlog by March, some businesses are worried about staying afloat. Some are waiting on tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of orders that are weeks late. When orders do come, they often contain only part of what the businesses paid for. 

Supply is dwindling or just gone. Bartenders are telling customers their favorite drink is out of stock. Restaurant owners are scrambling to adjust their wine menus. 

“I have not received inventory to keep (the store) full. We are a smaller business, so I don’t keep a ton of back stock but you shouldn’t have to be a big business to have a business in Mississippi,” said Brandi Carter, a co-owner of Levure and the beverage director at the Jackson restaurant Elvie’s, which was recently awarded a Michelin Bib Gourmand.

Levure was born out of Carter’s love of natural wines and sharing them with Mississippians. Natural wines are produced using minimal human intervention and additives and often have unique colors and flavors. As Carter developed Elvie’s wine menu, she realized that there weren’t enough natural wines in the state. To bring in new wines, she went through the painstaking, years-long process of getting them certified with the state’s ABC. 

Mississippi is one of 17 alcohol control states. In these states, some or all alcohol sold wholesale must go through a state agency. For many years, lawmakers have discussed privatizing alcohol distribution but some have worried that the state would lose the hundreds of millions of dollars it receives in taxes. In Mississippi, all wholesale spirits and wine must go through the ABC warehouse in Gluckstadt. ABC is under the state Department of Revenue. 

This is not the first time that ABC has experienced issues with deliveries. To address these issues, the Legislature in 2022 approved $55 million to build a new warehouse that could hold double the capacity at the time and the Department of Revenue contracted a private company in 2023 to operate the warehouse. 

Even though the process can be complicated, business owners say that they know how to do it and that lead times had improved.

In January, the warehouse took a planned break to do inventory and had notified customers months in advance. It also implemented a new software management system and ran into issues with the transition that took weeks to resolve according to Chris Graham, DOR commissioner. 

“We really crawled for a couple of weeks on shipping cases because of the challenges that they had with their system and getting it in place,” Graham said at a House State Affairs Committee hearing held Tuesday because of the alcohol crisis. 

In addition, new software was not compatible with the old conveyor belts that the warehouse used to load delivery trucks. So, operators removed three of the four conveyors and implemented a system to pick up and place individual pallets onto the trucks. While Graham said there had been a learning curve with the new system, he said that the warehouse had recently hired some experienced workers to help mitigate the issue.  

But business owners say issues go beyond delayed deliveries. 

“We may order five cases of an item. It’ll be marked as out of stock but we will get them,” said Jamie Farris, owner of Lincoln Road Package Store in Hattiesburg and a leader of the Mississippi Independent Package Store Association. Farris said that while it’s normal for orders to get mixed up, what’s happening now is “bonkers.”

Many businesses have reported being charged for orders they have not received or only partially received. Usually they are charged a few days before delivery but now they’re not sure when their products will be delivered. 

“There shouldn’t be widespread billing and not receiving the product unless there’s a problem that needs to be investigated,” Graham told lawmakers. 

“I think there is a problem,” responded Rep. Shanda Yates, an independent from Jackson. “I mean as of last night, I’ve heard from a dozen package store owners and restaurants who were facing this issue across the state.”

Lawmakers and industry leaders discussed various options to find solutions, including limiting orders to a hundred cases, authorizing direct shipment to businesses, and implementing a process for businesses to pick up their orders from ABC instead of waiting for delivery. Lawmakers are likely to propose new legislation in the coming days and weeks, but many business owners walked away from the hearing unsure when their orders would arrive.

“While we were sitting in this meeting, I had an order that was scheduled for today. It was going to be roughly 35 cases. It was charged to my account and one of my employees just sent me a text that we received five cases,” said Anne Marie Smith, the operations manager at Raines Cellars in Flora, speaking to the committee. 

Correction 2/18/2026: Rep. Shanda Yates is an independent from Jackson. Her party affiliation was listed incorrectly in an earlier version of this story.