‘Booze Bandits’ Threaten National Industry, British Pub Owners Say : Commerce: Cross-Channel trips to buy liquor, beer, wine are said to rob treasury.

Pub keepers call them “booze bandits” and warn that their cross-Channel activities threaten the national brewing industry. Liquor store owners say these passengers on “booze cruises” are eroding their profits. The government claims these shoppers are costing the treasury as much as $750 million a year in vanished taxes.

Just who are these scofflaws? They’re ordinary British citizens with a taste for the grape and a willingness to take advantage of the first year of the European Union’s single market. They’re doing so by buying liquor, wine and beer by the case--and often by the 175-case pallet--at dirt-cheap prices in French ferry ports like Calais and Dunkirk. They then haul the bottles and cans in vans and cars back by ferry to England.

Under European Union rules, citizens may buy unlimited quantities of liquor for “personal use.” But just what constitutes “personal” use remains something of a mystery--to be decided by customs agents in Dover, Folkestone and other Channel ports.

As a customs official puts it: “Our guidelines suggest that someone may bring in more than a normal amount, if they can prove they are holding a family party by showing us the invitations or something like that.”

What has caused the shopping boom along the French coast--the spree peaked over the holiday season with an estimated 1 million Britons making the Channel crossing--is cheaper French-bought wine, liquor and beer; the price differences are mainly attributable to much lower national taxes.

A 24-can case of Stella Artois beer that costs $31.50 in Britain goes for $8 on French shelves; a liter of gin that sells for $22.50 in England costs $16.50 in France; wine is available in Calais at half the price in Britain.

One big-spending British customer in Calais claimed to have saved almost $4,000 on his bill after loading up a van at a huge liquor store outside town called Eastenders (named after the English television soap opera). The Calais Chamber of Commerce says 13 million gallons of beer flowed back to Britain in 1993, representing a quarter of the total beer market in all of Northern France.

But what has proved a bonanza to British boozers has riled British brewers, publicans and liquor store proprietors.

“We estimate that 10,000 pubs could go out of business because of French competition,” said Catherine Chenery, spokeswoman for the Brewers’ Society. “That’s one out of six by the end of the century. We have lost about $375 million in sales this year alone.” The British Wine & Spirit Assn. estimates that wine sales in Britain are down by 10% this year with sales off by some $740 million.

Alan Meale, a Labor member of Parliament, warned after a recent inspection trip to Calais: “If this isn’t stopped, every pub in Britain and every brewery in Britain will close down, and we’ll all be sipping beer from little glasses in wine bars at 2 pounds ($3.50) a go.”

The problem as British brewers and merchants see it is Britain’s high taxes. While British brewing production costs are the second lowest in the European Union (next to Portugal), its taxes are the second highest (after Ireland). “We tax beer at 31 pence per pint,” Chenery of the Brewers’ Society said. “The French tax at 4 pence per pint.”

Customs officials take a calmer view of the tax rates, though the treasury is dropping--by some estimates up to $750 million yearly in lost taxes. But they predict that liquor and beer taxes will be lowered, as occurred in Denmark when Danes flocked to Germany to buy cheaper beer and schnapps.

Customs officials suggest that British brewing profit margins are much higher than those on the Continent and that the beer industry could cut back on profits to become more competitive. Competition is why, they say, Continentals come to Britain to buy clothing and other items that are bargains by European standards.

Customs agents are trying to crack down on canny British Channel crossers who load up with booze, which they then sell in Britain on the black market to pub keepers, stores and friends; this is supposed to be an illegal practice.

A Brewers’ Society consultant estimates that a “booze-cruiser” with a medium-sized van could clear $1,500 a day, buying beer for $4.50 per 24-bottle case and selling it in Britain for $10.50.

While many in Britain and France welcome the opening of the Channel tunnel this year, Peter Lewis, director of the Wine & Spirit Assn., complains of the opportunities for dedicated booze shoppers: “It will only exacerbate things further.”