About 2 months ago I began researching Excuse Vodka. It was taking way too long to bring to the marketplace. I remember Calvin telling a shareholder that they were waiting for approval from the ‘ATF.’
There have been posts going back to 6-26-2015 speaking about the ATF and Excuse Vodka:
Here is a portion of this post: “Anyone ever think that they are ready for the liquor but need special clearances in order to sell it. Doesn't the ATF Bureau have to "bless"/release it to be able for them to sell ?? Or at least the state liquor authority or both ?” -------------------------
Both statements are 100% correct. A regular shareholder was aware of this. Calvin Ross, the self-proclaimed drink guru, didn’t have a clue (more on that later). All along, whenever a shareholder asked him the status of Excuse Vodka’s licensing, he would tell this person that they were still waiting for approval from the ‘ATF.’ Calvin couldn’t be further from the truth. The ‘ATF’ quit issuing liquor licenses back in 2003; 12 years ago! A new agency formed by Homeland Security took over that part of the job. I wasn’t the only one who knew this. Here is a post from 8-12-2015 by Pitts77h that proves this. I get the feeling this post went over almost everyone’s head:
“According to the US Treasury's "Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau" - who actually DOES license these sorts of things - the average processing time for "distilled spirits" is only 27 days.”
www.ttb.gov/labeling/processing-times.shtml
For reference, NGCG announced that "New Generation Consumer Group's premium Vodka based liqueur is currently pending approval for importation" on APRIL 27TH!!
That was 107 days ago.” -------------------------------------------------- (Update: The shareholder update does indeed say April 27th, but Calvin said he actually submitted the application in March, which means it has now been about 150 days, and counting.)
If you want to search TTB’s sight, here’s the page to start on if you want to find out if NGCG has been approved for their license. I have been searching for 2 months, looking for the approval:
I researched everything that I could; I called the TTB and the California ABC; I sent emails and got multiple confirmations.
After spending the past couple of months researching the Excuse Vodka ‘story,’ one of the last pieces of the puzzle for me was calling and talking to Calvin Ross, so I did.
When I called and spoke to Calvin Ross on 8-19-2015, I started off by asking him why the long wait for Excuse Vodka? I said, the last I heard, you told a shareholder that you were waiting for approval from the ‘ATF’. I then asked if he was still waiting for approval from the ‘ATF’. He said yes. I asked when he sent in the application to the ‘ATF.’ I said it was around February or March, right? He said yeah, around March. I asked why it was taking so long. He told me ‘they’ wanted some corrections done on the product, other than that, he didn’t know.
I asked him what the ‘ATF’ had told him the other times when he called. He said they just told him they were busy but working on it. He complained that this was the government and there was nothing he could do. He said he couldn’t force them to approve Excuse. He complained that there was nothing wrong with the drink. There was no hemp in it, or any other substance that would make it dangerous or illegal. It was just different flavors of fruit juice.
I then asked him why he sent his application to the ‘ATF.’ I told him that was the wrong place to send it. There was a couple of seconds pause, then he said, “Oh, the TTB.” Now, I personally got the feeling that he was stalling, trying to remember the initials of that ‘other’ agency. Up until just then, he had never mentioned the TTB. Always the ‘ATF’. I said ‘ATF’ plenty of times to give him a chance to correct me. In my opinion, either Calvin saw that post made above by Pitts77h, or someone else saw it and let Calvin know.
At this point he was starting to get a little annoyed with me because of the type of questions I was asking him. He knew where this was leading. At one point, he angrily said: “Oh go ahead, write this up if you want!”
nyway, when I asked him why they hadn’t even sent in an application to the California Department of Alcohol Beverage Control (known as an ABC liquor license), reminding him that it takes a while to process, and if he was waiting for approval for their federal liquor license, why on earth would they not have already filed for their state license, he gave me what seemed like a bizarre answer. He said: ‘Look, we can’t do anything until we get approved!’
At that point, I wasn’t sure if he was back to the supposed TTB application, or if he was answering my question about the state license. If it was about the state license, that would be an absurd answer; you can't be waiting for approval if you haven’t even filed the application with the state yet.
I asked him a couple more times why they hadn't filed with the state. He was angrily mumbling something but I couldn’t make out what he was saying. When I told him again that the ABC says he has not sent in an application yet, he then barked at me that his lawyer has it and is taking care of everything, and that he didn’t know what the status was. I said, what’s he taking care of? The ABC has confirmed multiple times that NGCG hasn't filed the application for the State liquor license! This should have been done months ago. He was really getting agitated at this point because I kept pushing him for a reasonable answer. He would not give me a simple answer to a simple question. He finally told me to quit wasting his F-Bombing time and promptly hung up.
Jordan Belfort in "Wolf of Wall Street": "Rich people don't buy penny stocks. They're too smart."
