🔒Changing of the Guard: Meet the lobbyist backing package stores in their toughest political fight yet

In Washington, D.C., big tech, Wall Street and the defense industry carry significant influence when it comes to shaping public policy and federal spending.

At the state Capitol in Hartford there’s a different industry group that doesn’t have nearly as much financial backing, but wields serious power: package store owners.

And behind every powerful interest group typically lies an influential lobbyist.

For more than 40 years, lobbyist Carroll Hughes led Connecticut package stores in their fight with supermarkets and others on a number of issues, including Sunday sales and wine in grocery stores.

Following his death in late 2021, Hughes’ business partner and wife, Jean Cronin, became the face of the package store industry.

Now, in only year two leading Old Saybrook-based Hughes & Cronin Public Affairs Strategies and the Connecticut Package Stores Association, Cronin, 61, is facing perhaps one of her biggest political fights yet.

For decades, Hughes and Cronin successfully persuaded lawmakers to give package stores exclusive rights to sell wine and spirits, despite heavy lobbying from the Connecticut Food Association (CFA) to extend sales to grocery stores.

This year, the CFA, which represents 260 supermarkets in the state, is doubling down on its lobbying efforts by conducting a wide-scale media campaign to drum up public support.

Connecticut is one of only eight states that doesn’t allow grocery stores to sell wine and spirits. CFA President Wayne Pesce said reversing that ban is long overdue.

Potentially at stake for the state’s 1,250 package stores, many owned by independent, small business operators, is their future financial health — wine is their highest profit margin product, Cronin said.

Pesce said he expects no less fight from Cronin, who he called a formidable adversary who knows the issue, how the state Capitol operates and most, if not every player in the legislature.

“She’s very good at what she does and she has great people skills and that’s what the job calls for,” Pesce said.

It was Pesce, in fact, who warned Cronin last year that his group would be ratcheting up the wine-sales battle in 2023.

“We actually found out about all of this in the spring of 2022 from Wayne Pesce when he came up to my son and said he was sorry about my husband’s passing and that he was coming in big time next year (2023) for wine in grocery stores,” Cronin said. “We got a heads-up, we just didn’t know what big-time meant. We do now as they are putting on quite a show of force.”

In addition to the Connecticut Package Stores Association, the Indian American Package Stores Association and Wine and Spirits Wholesalers of Connecticut, among other groups, also oppose grocery stores on wine sales. Hundreds of people flocked to the state Capitol on Feb. 2 to testify on the issue, which has become one of the most contentious of the legislative session.

And it's not clear exactly what a final bill proposal will look like. One version of the bill would allow grocery stores to sell wine and spirits but with restrictions. For example, no food store within 1,000 feet of an existing package store would be allowed to sell wine, Hearst CT reported.

Career influences

Cronin earned a communications degree at UConn and early in her career held positions in the financial and insurance sectors for Citicorp and Aetna.

Later, she served as a communications strategist for the Senate Republicans, prior to becoming a lobbyist and joining her husband’s firm in 1986.

Hughes, who died at age 79 after a battle with leukemia, was credited with establishing the state’s first independent lobbying practice in 1970s; he took on representation of the Connecticut Package Stores Association that same decade.

Cronin said her husband was a great teacher, influencer and partner, but they also had different styles, each effective in their own way.

“My husband would get a little distressed at times; he was a little more emotional than I am,” Cronin said. “He would tend to get worked up on an issue if someone was not on board, or something was changing or getting disrupted. We always had a plan of how we worked through it, but he would often get riled up and I tended to be a little more even-keeled.”

Cronin said she also gets more involved in the inner-workings of policy issues.

Key to her success, she added, is relationship-building with policymakers. On an average day, Cronin said she will meet with 30 to 40 legislators, either on Zoom or in person.

Her typical day at the Legislative Office Building begins when the doors open at 8 a.m. Depending on what issues are being debated, she could be there until late into the evening.

Today, Cronin’s five-person firm includes her son — 28-year-old Sean Hughes, who is vice president — and lobbyist Mallory Daley, in addition to an administrative assistant and part-time bookkeeper.

Cronin said she’s grooming her son to one day take over the family business.

About half of the firm’s work is focused on representing the package store industry; it has 22 overall clients, including the Connecticut Police Chiefs Association, Connecticut School Transportation Association and American Chemistry Council.

In the 2021-22 reporting period, Hughes & Cronin Public Affairs recorded $1.3 million in total compensation, putting it among the 25 highest-earning lobbying firms in the state, according to data from the Office of State Ethics.

Cronin said operating a small firm allows her team to pivot quickly when issues arise.

“We are the strategists, the lobbyists, the researchers and everything in between,” she said.

Industry respect

Former Connecticut House Speaker Joe Aresimowicz is now a lobbyist for New Britain-based Gaffney, Bennett and Associates, the state’s largest lobbying firm that's representing supermarkets in this year's battle.

Aresimowicz said Cronin has a lot of influence in the state Capitol and that few can make their case like she can.

He recalled how Cronin would organize legislator visits to local package store businesses to hear their side of an issue.

“She organizes the community that’s either affected by potential legislation or legislation that was passed,” Aresimowicz said. “She engages with legislators, which I think is incredibly important and effective. She knows the system, knows the process and knows how important individual connections are.”

Cronin and fellow longtime lobbyist Paddi LeShane are trailblazers of sorts. Both started in the industry when few women were influence peddling inside the Capitol.

LeShane, who started lobbying for the Easter Seals Society in 1978 and is now CEO of Hartford-based government relations firm Sullivan & LeShane Inc., has known Cronin professionally since the 1980s.

“She’s got all the pieces of the puzzle that a lobbyist needs to be successful,” LeShane said. “She obviously knows how to work the building and how to persuade people. I also think you can’t be successful unless you are willing to entertain the opinions of others. She does that just as well.”

Spirited debate

Cronin will need to muster all her influence amid this year’s wine-sales debate.

Pesce, the food association president, said his group’s stepped-up efforts include hiring an outside lobbying firm to supplement their work, asking customers to contact their legislators and having in-store signs and loudspeaker announcements encouraging people to sign petitions.

Pesce said consumers want the convenience of being able to purchase wine at grocery stores, which are already permitted to sell beer. He said expanded sales will grow the market and have an overall positive economic impact on the state.

A poll paid for by the association shows an overwhelming majority of Connecticut residents approve wine sales in grocery stores, he added.

As part of its stepped-up efforts, CFA will present an analysis to lawmakers on Tennessee’s market that shows wine sales in supermarkets wouldn’t put package stores out of business.

Since 2017, the state of Tennessee has added 65 package stores, despite permitting grocery store wine sales in 2016, he said.

“We are looking at Tennessee because we think it’s apples to apples and that this is the best indicator of what will happen here,” said Pesce, who noted grocery stores are facing their own challenges coming out of the pandemic.

Cronin counters that package stores make most of their money through wine sales, and that competing with grocery stores would hurt their businesses.

Cronin also said there is a small business argument that doesn’t always get through, especially among younger people.

“Young people like everything delivered and convenient,” she said. “They think the convenience factor outweighs the small business factor and this is something we are working on. Many of these package stores are owned by immigrants that came here from other places to purchase a store and achieve the American dream.”

In response to the food association’s strong lobbying efforts, the beverage alcohol industry has formed a coalition of various package store and alcohol wholesaler groups to engage in a public relations campaign. They’ve hired a PR firm that is creating media ads and doing other public outreach. Package stores have also launched a website to garner consumer support.

Cronin said the issue is a personal one to her.

“I know these (package store owners) and I know their issues and it’s very frustrating when you put your heart and soul into a business and then somebody wants to change the rules, and your whole business plan gets changed,” she said.