A bill going through the Ohio Senate looks to put a stop to liquor flippers. 

Some liquors like whiskey, tequila and bourbon are rare and expensive because of it. That’s created a market where collectors will seek out these bottles no matter what.

“What happens is a lot of these guys will wait in line from two, three in the morning, collect a bottle and then turn around and resell it sometimes at four, five hundred percent,” Al Franceschelli, the owner of A&C Beverage in Youngstown said. 

To try and stop the collectors that are there for profit, Senate Bill 320 wants to make stores open the bottles and reseal them in front of the customer. The bill is directed towards expensive bottles of liquor that distilleries only make a small batch of, making them hard to find. The idea is that if the bottle is opened no one else will want it for resale. 

“It's just a ridiculous concept…once the corks popped the bottle compromised,” George Levendis, a bourbon enthusiast, said. 

Levendis collects the rare bottles as a hobby. He feels opening the bottle wouldn’t dissolve the secondary market, it would just create more problems.

“Now you're inviting a huge process of counterfeiting of open bottles, someone pouring the bourbon out and pouring something [else] in that,” he said. 

Liquor store owners also feel the issue is not with the collectors, it's with the state that controls the price of these rare bottles.

“If they‘re flipping Blanton’s for 250 bucks a bottle just charge 250 bucks a bottle…and knock those guys out of business,” Franceschelli said.

Enthusiasts say if the state forced this law on them, it would end up hurting Ohio more when collectors go into Pennsylvania to get the liquor they want.

“I believe in a free market,” Levendis said. “I think the government has no business involved in telling us we have to open bottles of liquor when we buy it at the store.”

The entire bill as it was introduced can be found here.