The state has become a tougher place to do business since the Boening family brought their beverage distribution business to Rockland County in 1980.

Taxes, along with hidden taxes in the form of fees and the overwhelming cost of New York”™s new bottle bill has Debra Boening upset. Add the new Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act and you have more headachesÂ for small-business owners.

Four generations after Boening”™s great-grandfather, a farmer in Mineola, Long Island, drove his wagon into Manhattan each day to pick up discarded hops for feed and deliver beer to neighbors, she and her brother, Harold, run the family business, Oak Beverage, It has grown to 300 employees, 100 of them based in a 250,000-square-foot distribution center in Blauvelt.

“We movedÂ a large part of our operations here (from Long Island) because itÂ brought us closer to our Westchester, Bronx and Dutchess customers,” said Boening.Â Bradley Corporate Park offered the space, a rail spur (no longer used) and affordableÂ taxes.

But times have changed.

“People used to return bottles and get money for them and they would be reused by the breweries,” Boening said. “People started taking a dislike to bottles that had scratch marks on them, even though the inside was untouched, so the disposable bottle came into being.”

And, in turn, it became a losing proposition for distributors.

Since 1983, drivers delivering bottles are also picking up empties from customers, which are crushed at the company”™s recycling center.

“We separate the aluminum from the glass and do sell that,” said Boening.Â “The rest is carted to another recycling firm in Connecticut.”Â For stores with bottle-return machines, a monthly tally is sent to a distributor on how many of its cans or bottles were returned.

“For every can or bottle, the store gets 8.5 cents, the customer receives five cents and the distributor receives nothing. We get the joy of picking it up and disposing of it,” Boening said. “In New Jersey, there is no handling fee or bottle charge. We are shortchanged on both ends, particularly if people are returning bottles purchased in New Jersey and in New York. To a large distributor, the cost is easily over a million dollars a year.”

Boening estimates Oak Beverages, which carries 50 brands of beer and carries many craft brands, moves about 3.5 million cases (24 bottles each) out of its Blauvelt distribution center, serving customers throughout the Hudson Valley and New York City. She recently started distributing wine, working with Brotherhood Winery in Washingtonville.
But the cost of doing business makes her cringe.

“Property taxes have become so exorbitant they have made doing business just plainÂ painful. Add to that the MTA tax, which no one benefits from here in Rockland except the MTA. Now we”™ll have to contendÂ with the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act,” she said. “We already have a great insurance program in place for our employees and pay 75 percent of the cost. We used to pay for all of it, but it became so overwhelming we had to ask employees to contribute something.

“Will we be forced to pay a penalty if an employee opts out of the new health care package? Must we ”˜do the math”™ to see if they are eligible for a waiverÂ in the planned insurance ”˜exchange?”™ We have over 300 employees between our operation here and in Long Island, so we are subject to the new legislation. Will we have to delve into our employees”™ personal lives to find out if they are eligible for a health care subsidy?”

Boening, whose company was recognized in its industry as one of the top distributors in the county in 2010, was named “Businesswoman of the Year” by the RBA in 2009, has her finger on the pulse of her business and watching New York”™s taxes, fees and surcharges surging upward.

“If New York doesn”™t start doing something soon ”“ making it worthwhile for village and town consolidations, finding ways to merge police services,Â encouraging counties and school districts to buy in bulk ”“ perhaps creating a countywide school district, capping property taxes and stop adding taxes on an overtaxes population and calling them ”˜fees,”™ it will find itself losing more businesses and residents to other states. Our neighbors on both sides of us are making moving very attractive. Is anyone paying attention in Albany?”

Counting nickels

It might help clean up the environment, put money in state coffers and keep highways and roads cleaner, but ask any bottler or distributor in New York state what the “bottle law” is doing for their business and they”™ll tell you, “It”™s just another tax. Why doesn”™t the state just tell it like it really is.”

The followingÂ is excerpted from the enacted 2010-11 budget. The numbers are state projections and do not necessarily represent the funds the state will actually realize as a result of the new regulations imposed on the beverage industry.

The bottle legislation adds to the existing 1982 “bottle law” by expanding the 5-cent deposit on carbonated beverages such as beer and soda to include bottled water. It mandates the state retain 80 percent of unclaimed bottle deposits. These deposits, previously held by beverage companies, will provide New York with an additional $115 million in annual revenue to help address the State”™s fiscal crisis.

Under the budget agreement, the state will also make critical investments through the Environmental Protection Fund with appropriations of $222 million to ensure programs protecting New York”™s water quality, open space, farmland and municipal parks remain intact. For the first time, 40 percent of the parks and waterfront revitalization funding will be targeted to underserved communities, up from 25 percent from previous years.

Beverage distributors like Oak Beverage and other major distributors in New York state are impacted by the loss of income, particularly since bottles can no longer be reused, but distributors are responsible for the disposal of empties.