Regulators Go After Ultra, the D.C. Booze Delivery App. Ultra Rolls Over and Plays Dead.

Yesterday the D.C. Alcohol
Beverage Control Board
dropped a cease and desist order into the laps of the booze
delivery app Ultra.

Although Ultra partners with a licensed booze purveyor to
fulfill orders of wine, beer and spirits and deliver them to D.C.
households, the board found Ultra was “soliciting orders for sale”
and processing customer payments, necessitating a license. The
board’s reasoning was laid out in a March
advisory opinion rendered for another
start-up, BeerRightNow.com.

The squabble precisely mirrors the nearly three-year long fight
between the District and Uber, the car hailing app. Both companies
say they are simply facilitating transactions between individuals
and are therefore outside the domain of regulators who govern
liquor stores or taxi drivers. 

But where Uber has gone on the offensive, Ultra plans to roll
over and play dead:

Ultra owner Aniket Shah said Thursday he is committed to working
with the ABC Board to finding a way to operate under the current
rules…. 

“We are not defiant,” he said. “We are hoping to comply
completely with all regulations, and we take these regulations very
seriously. We want good relations with [the Alcoholic Beverage
Regulation Administration] and the partner stores. We don’t want to
risk the licenses of our partner stores, not only in D.C. but
through the U.S.”

Shah said he’ll be meeting with regulators Friday to work though
the issues, but he said Ultra will stop taking D.C. orders while
the matter is resolved.

Don’t get me wrong, I don’t blame the guy. And I don’t intend to
go all
Niemoller on him. After all, he’s operating in the
super-regulated booze biz, a market that continues to be plagued
by a serious Prohibition hangover. By playing possum, he’s
doing what he thinks is best for the survival of his business.
(Which is a freaking great idea, by the by. Standardized, app-based
booze delivery? Yes, please!)

But there’s something about Uber’s response to similar
government maneuvering that gladdens the heart. When you get a
cease and desist letter, you can say “oops, we’re very very sorry,
we’ll change the way we do business even i” or you can do what Uber
co-founder Travis Kalanick did: Post the letter to your
Instagram account with a snide note about “cartels.”

Meanwhile, Uber’s entrenched opponents in the taxi cartel are
still using analog tactics. A strike gridlocked downtown D.C. this
week. The goal was somehow to raise awareness of the need to shut
down the popular app. Instead, the cab-hailers of the city tried to
flag cabs, grumped
about the unreliability of cabs, and then opened up their Uber apps
to grab a private car instead. Of course sometimes the taxi
commission just has people who disagree
with them arrested.