An effort to either ban nips, small bottles of alcohol typically around 50 milliliters, in the state or subject them to Connecticut’s bottle bill will return in the upcoming legislative session, according to Rep. Mary Mushinsky, D-Wallingford.
Mushinsky held a press conference on January 28, a week before the 2026 legislative session begins on February 4, to announce two versions of legislation aimed at controlling the number of nips sold in the state. One would ban the sale of nips entirely and another would add nips to the list of containers that have a 10-cent refundable deposit under Connecticut’s bottle bill.
This last approach, Mushinsky said, is aimed at reducing litter from nips discarded by the side of the road, with the goal being to encourage people to pick up nip bottles and return them for the 10-cent deposit.
Mushinsky, who has been attempting to pass legislation to either ban or reform the sale of nips for years, said their sale creates several problems for the state.
Mushinsky said they create an alcohol problem because they are easy to hide and consume while driving, a community degradation problem due to the number of nip bottles that are discarded and left on the ground, and a water pollution problem. Mushinsky said nip bottles are now one of the top two most commonly found pieces of litter in the Long Island Sound.
A 2021 bottle bill law added a five-cent surcharge to the sale of each nip sold in the state. Liquor wholesalers are required to pass this on to municipalities, which must use the funds on environmental efforts to reduce waste and litter, and to report twice yearly on the number of nips that have been sold.
According to a report from the Office of Fiscal Analysis covering October 1, 2021, to September 30, 2025, the state has sold roughly 93.7 million nips during that time period and earned an average of $4.6 million per year.
At the press conference, Tom Metzner from Connecticut Towns Nixing the Nips said it is clear from efforts volunteers are making to pick up nips and other roadside litter that people are drinking and driving and throwing the bottles out the window. Metzner said volunteers from the organization had collected a full bag of nips from within a quarter of a mile of a package store, all of which he said “went out the window.”
Metzner added that the nickel per nips program instituted as part of the 2021 law doesn’t work. “It’s not about how towns are spending the money, it’s about municipal responsibility and preventing these from going out the window.” Mushinsky said, adding that the only way to ennsure nips aren’t being thrown out the windows of cars is to ban their sale.
Efforts to ban or reform the sale of nips have been introduced during the past few legislative sessions, but have gone nowhere.
During the 2025 legislative session, Mushinsky sponsored a bill calling for state law to be amended to ban the sale of nips. It never received a public hearing.
Mushinsky was also one of several co-sponsors of a bill introduced during the 2024 legislative session that would have allowed municipalities to vote to ban the sale of nips. The bill received a public hearing, but was never voted on by the Committee on Environment, where it was introduced.
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It’s interesting that Rep. Mushinsky is pushing for two distinct approaches—a full ban versus inclusion in the bottle bill. I wonder which path has a stronger chance of gaining bipartisan support this time around, given the previous attempts. The focus on controlling the sheer volume of nips seems like a key driver.