Warehouse failures endanger Mississippi liquor stores

You know something is radically wrong with liquor stores if their most profitable month of the year is Dry January.

According to the Washington Post, that’s how 2026 has played out for many liquor stores in Mississippi that are now either out of business or on the brink of closing after the state’s only wholesale alcohol warehouse nuked its own computer system.

Inventory system of a down

Mississippi is one of 17 Alcoholic Beverage Control states. That means the state handles alcohol distribution rather than relying on the private sector:

• It has a single wholesale liquor warehouse, which the legislature required a third party to run as of a few years ago. That job went to the Ruan Transport Corporation.
• This past fall, Ruan told retailers it planned to close for two weeks in January to do inventory.
• In addition to counting boxes, however, the company reportedly also decided to tear out old conveyor belts in favor of a new packing system that relied on humans. But then…Ruan allegedly didn’t hire humans.

By the time Ruan got temporary workers on the job, there were 200,000 backorders that needed to be filled.

Zoom out: The state is now planning to build a new warehouse, but that won’t open until 2027.—HVL