Chapayevsk: Bottle for 100 Rubles, Fine 300 Times Larger

In Chapayevsk (Samara Oblast, Russia), a court fined three local residents who tried to make a quick profit by selling alcohol without permission. Each received a fine of 30,000 rubles (about $330 at current rates), even though they sold bottles for 100 to 450 rubles ($1 to $5 at current rates).

It is worth noting that it was not the stores that were fined, but the ordinary sellers working in them. They decided to sell «their own» goods — alcohol purchased elsewhere — secretly from the store owners.

The first incident occurred back in August last year. A seller at a kiosk on Shchorsa Street sold half a liter of an unlabeled alcohol-containing liquid for 100 rubles (about $1 at current rates). Later, police found an entire stockpile in his kiosk: dozens of bottles of various sizes without labels, as well as a batch of vodka brands «5 Ozer» (Five Lakes) and «Volzhskie Zori» (Volga Dawns). All this alcohol was seized and destroyed.

A second seller sold a liter of the same unnamed liquid for 200 rubles (about $2 at current rates) at the «Vozrozhdenie» (Renaissance) kiosk in Chapayevsk. In the end, police confiscated another 57 bottles from him.

In October, a saleswoman at the «Parus» (Sail) store decided to resell a bottle of «Pyat Ozer» (Five Lakes) vodka that she had bought for herself. She sold it for 450 rubles (about $5 at current rates), but in the end lost not only that money but also an entire «arsenal»: police seized the 14 bottles of vodka, whiskey, and wine she had brought to sell under the counter.

In all cases, the magistrate judge of Court District No. 120 in Chapayevsk imposed the minimum fine under the article — 30,000 rubles (about $330 at current rates). This is far more than they earned. For example, in the first case, the fine was 300 times larger than the revenue from selling bootleg alcohol for 100 rubles.

These cases surfaced amid residents« own activism, as they began searching stores for dangerous counterfeit goods. Journalist Ksenia Shtefan earlier reported that activists in Chapayevsk bought unlabeled alcohol for 100 to 300 rubles per bottle and filed complaints with police. It is possible that such reports led to targeted inspections.