Georgia craft brewers may actually have something to cheer about this week at the Capitol, as Senate lawmakers neared a compromise on legislation allowing brewers to sell a limited amount of beer directly to consumers.
Senate Bill 63 is now scheduled for a vote Thursday in the Senate Regulated Industries and Utilities Committee, with changes expected to include an even stricter limit on just how much beer someone could buy at a brewery. Its sponsor, state Sen. Hunter Hill, R-Smyrna, declined to go into further detail but credited Lt. Gov. Casey Cagle and committee Chairman Rick Jeffares, R-McDonough, for working through concerns that the bill went too far.
Dubbed by Hill as the “Beer Jobs Bill,” SB 63 as currently written would allow consumers to buy up to 72 ounces of beer to drink “on-premise” and up to 144 ounces to take home. In layman’s terms, these are daily limits equivalent to 4 1/2 pints on tap and a 12-pack to go, respectively.
The state’s wholesalers opposed it immediately, but Hill said Tuesday that he believes popular support — plus the changes — will help sway committee members to back it.
“In the last two weeks, there’s been positive momentum in favor of a decision and what I think will be mutually beneficial for all the parties,” Hill said.
His optimism follows a weeks-long targeted social media campaign by the bill’s supporters, including some who called Cagle an obstructionist because of past financial support from wholesalers and the industry. Cagle has collected more than $100,000 in contributions from the liquor industry in the previous election cycle, from January 2011 to January 2015.
Hill said the criticism was unwarranted. Nancy Palmer, the executive director of the Georgia Craft Brewers Guild, said brewers were encouraged but cautious. “Now is the time to act,” Palmer said. “We are coming down to the wire.”
Georgia currently uses a “three-tier” system to separate the beer brewer, the wholesaler or distributor who delivers the beer, and then the retail shop, restaurant or bar that sells the beer to customers.
The system came into play as Georgia and the nation emerged from Prohibition, and it aimed to prevent monopolies by national beer manufacturers — the rules, in essence, prevented them from doing it all: making the beer, selling it and delivering it themselves to anyone who wanted.
Wholesalers essentially play the role of middlemen in the state’s regulatory system, and they say the current system works well.
Committee members have indicated they would be supportive of the bill if it had further limits. It’s a tricky issue in the Legislature, where the state’s alcohol distribution system has been under discussion for at least a dozen years. Lawmakers have already relaxed regulations on wine sales and allowed Sunday alcohol sales. Beer laws, however, have largely remained more restrictive.
"You've got to wear the badge you've got; mine says 'economic development and tourism,' " said state Sen. Frank Ginn, R-Danielsville, a committee member supportive of the effort who has proposed additional measures to protect wholesalers."The public doesn't care about the three-tier system. They want to make sure when they go to take a tour of a brewery or distillery that they can have an educational tour, they can have a tasting tour and they can leave with the product."
Ginn's legislation, Senate Bill 174, would include direct sales by both brewers and Georgia distilleries, but only if they route their beer or liquor through the wholesalers first — essentially allowing them a cut of the business.
Two weeks after the bill was filed Jan. 28, four lobbyists for the craft brewers guild took several members of the Senate Regulated Industries and Utilities Committee out to dinner, including Sens. Ginn, Jeffares, Steve Gooch, Jeff Mullis and Renee Unterman, according to state lobbyist disclosure reports.
But the $322.80 total cost of the meal is about one-third of what two liquor distributors reported spending in February. Lobbyists for the Wine & Spirits Wholesalers of Georgia and the Georgia Alcohol Dealers Association together spent more than $1,000.
While that total includes $250 worth of dinners for five House members, it also includes more than $750 to stock hospitality rooms open to lawmakers and staff, plus a lunch for all Senate committee chairmen.
Since Jan. 1, 2014, political action committees for beer, wine and liquor distributors gave more than $43,000 to lawmakers and other state officials, including Gov. Nathan Deal, who would have to decide whether to sign or veto any bill that reaches his desk.
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