By ANNELIA NIXON

Tribune Business Reporter

anixon@tribunemedia.net

Liquor store merchants yesterday urged the Bahamas' consumer watchdog to prove that rogue operators are selling counterfeit alcohol - a "rumour" said to have been circulating for around a year.

Brent “Bookie” Ferguson, owner of BookieBren Wholesale & Retail Liquor Store, said he has experienced persons “trying to call my fish stink" after Senator Randy Rolle, the Consumer Protection Commission's chairman, told the Senate during the 2025-2026 Budget debate that the agency will be investigating and sanctioning merchants selling counterfeit alcohol.

But Mr Ferguson, who said he purchases his inventory from legitimate Bahamian and international distributors, said that while packaging may sometimes be different that does not make it counterfeit. He spoke of others within the industry starting rumours to bring rival companies down. 

“Someone came here the other day trying to call my fish stink,” Mr Ferguson said. “You can't call the fisherman's fish stink. Every fisherman got their fish. I had some product that was packaged from, I think, Canada. But guess what? They're the same. These companies operate in different countries and the packages are different. But that doesn't mean that the fish stink.

"Someone come and put something in their head, ‘The fish may be stink because it ain't the same packaging as the other one'. You would see some packages just say Stoli, and then you would probably see some packages that say Stolichnaya. And I think the company break both up... I don't know the full history on it but I've heard some stuff about it.

"And guess what? They are packaged slightly differently. But guess what? The product is still good. There's no counterfeit. But you know what happens, too? You got some of the big distributors who are probably upset that where they're buying it from, someone else is buying it from someplace else. So guess what? They start to spread rumours and say, 'Boy, that person fish stink'," Mr Ferguson said.

“So we got to be careful. When people come here and call my fish stink, or I hear that about other people, they put that on me.... Now, if it's true, then someone needs to show me and tell me exactly how it's true. But if it ain't true, why give the people a bad name? I'm not that type of person. When I compete, I compete with great pricing and great service. I don't compete by downgrading somebody else to rise. That's not the way to do it.”

While Mr Rolle did not identify who is selling “counterfeit alcohol”, he said the Commission and the Bahamas Agricultural Health and Food Safety Authority, headed by Dr Patricia Johnson, are part of a joint initiative cracking down on the problem. He said there are steps they follow "to validate these complaints", but has not received any official reports of someone becoming ill from counterfeit alcohol.

“Bahamians, when they sense that there's something wrong or something happening, they would send us a complaint,” he said. “We have steps that we're going by to validate these complaints. I don't know, or I've not received, any official reports as it relates to someone getting sick," Mr Rolle said.

"But, if we have that case, what we will do is refer them to a clinic or the hospital, because when you say you get poison, some testing has to be done. But we know that there's a number of places out there that sell cheap, cheap alcohol - cheap Hennessy. And there are some markings, barcodes and stuff, it may be erased. And so then there is some suspicion of it being fake alcohol.”

Mr Ferguson, though, argued that “you got to say that with some type of backing” of Mr Rolle's comments. He said he has not heard of any reports of persons being arrested for the sale of counterfeit alcohol, or of persons being hospitalised due to poisoning from to counterfeit alcohol.

Mr Ferguson said “it would be helpful” if more information was released regarding who is selling counterfeit product so others can avoid purchasing from those merchants.

George Robinson Jr, owner of Base Road Wholesale Bar, said the circulation of counterfeit alcohol has been rumoured for about a year. He noted that he, too, was visited by persons who tested his products “to compare it".

“It has been rumoured,” Mr Robinson said. “You don't want to call people name, but it has been rumoured that certain companies are selling counterfeit alcohol. I've had some customers brought some products to me, just to compare it. And when we look at it, what we get from our local distributor, it wasn't matching up.

"The label was different. The looks on the bottle was different. And I had referred it to the distributor. I drew it to their attention, and they definitely said that it wasn't their product. They did say it was a counterfeit. Whoever is selling it, they didn't get it from there.

“And this was one of their products. It was one of their products that they import. They tried to imitate the label, but the label was a little different and the content was a little different. And so you could see it was not the original. And we've been getting a lot of, I wouldn't say, complaints," Mr Robinson.

"But when people come to our store, what they do is they would look for a particular code on some of the products, because they say that they understand that a lot of counterfeit products are selling on the market. So the consumers are aware of it; they are very cautious. So you can always check the code."

Mr Robinson added that there are a number of ways to detect counterfeit alcohol, including the bar code, imitation labels with discrepancies and examining the content. He also said the taste can differ. 

Tribune Business did not hear back from BAHFSA before press time.