Is Selling Liquor Filled Candy Illegal in Massachusetts?

The liqueur filled chocolate has a Massachusetts statute of its own, and it is one sentence long. M.G.L. c. 270, sec. 8 says whoever sells to a person any candy enclosing or containing liquid or syrup having more than one per cent of alcohol shall be punished by a fine of not more than $100.

Every phrase in the sentence narrows it

The act is a sale, to a person. The item is candy. The alcohol has to sit in a liquid or syrup that the candy encloses or contains. And the amount has to be more than one per cent. Drop any one of those and the sentence no longer describes what happened, which is what makes the filled chocolate the textbook fit: a shell around a liquid center.

One per cent is the whole test

There is no separate rule for a stronger filling and no graduated penalty. The section draws a single line and the fine is the same on the far side of it, capped at one hundred dollars, with no jail term attached.

It sits in the public health chapter

Chapter 270 is titled crimes against public health, which is the company section 8 keeps. That placement is a small clue about why the Legislature wrote it: the concern in the chapter is what is being sold and consumed, not who holds a license to sell alcohol. The licensing system is a different body of law entirely.

What this page is not

This page describes what section 8 says. It does not say how the section is enforced, whether a particular confection crosses the one per cent line, or how a court would treat a given set of facts. Read the section yourself at the link above, and for a real situation, telephone the firm.