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Let No Good Deed Go Unpunished

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I confess at the outset that this story has nothing to do with beer, but is about bourbon … sort of. But it is also about the assault on alcohol — and to some extent civil liberty — a subject I find myself writing about more and more these days, so that’s why I decided to write this. I certainly didn’t set out to make the neo-prohibitionists my cause célèbre, but I find that few things get me as worked up and angry than people whose sole mission appears to be telling the rest of us how to live. I guess that makes me an anti-control freak, or something.

At any rate, the story involved a St. Petersburg, Florida man named Evan Preston who local authorities have dubbed the “Woodstock Santa.” He’s been given this epithet by local authorities, and especially city council member Bill Foster, who hopes to stop Preston from giving gifts to the homeless. Now lest I paint Foster as a complete Scrooge, he’s apparently okay with giving them blankets or a warm bowl of soup. What he doesn’t like is that Foster gives the homeless what they really want: booze.

The eccentric Evan Preston (at left in the long gray beard), age 72, owns a well-known jewelry and art store and has in the past helped the local community raise money for a variety of causes by donating artwork.

He’s apparently helped his town’s Make-A-Wish Foundation and also nearby Tampa’s Big Cat Rescue. Four years ago, he decided he wanted to do something for St. Petersburg’s growing homeless population that congregate around the downtown Williams Park, near his business. So for a few years now, he and several friends and colleagues pass out 100 bottles of bourbon and cigars to the homeless.

Here, let’s pick up the story from Tampa’s Creative Loafing website:

“At first, I thought it would be interesting to give out a six-pack and a cigar,” he says over a glass of homemade sangria in his kitchen. “When I saw the excitement in their faces, it was inspirational.”

After a few outings to various homeless enclaves around the city, he says, St. Pete’s homeless began to recognize him. When he pulled up in his Bentley, they would run at him, jump on the car and hug him tightly.

Preston became the homeless’ Santa Claus, a 6-foot-2 bearded Samaritan in a T-shirt and jeans who gave all the good street men and women what they really wanted for Christmas.

“Last time, a man came up and said, ‘Thank you, this is so much better than a warm blanket,'” he recalls. “It’s shocking how much everybody loves it.”

“There is no motive to what we do,” he says. “It’s a gesture of goodwill.”

Well, you just know something like that will not be permitted for very long, not without somebody trying to put a stop to it. And right on cue, Foster is appalled that someone might give alcohol to alcoholics. Part of his reasoning is that alcohol is what put them on the street in the first place. While that may be true in some cases, he really doesn’t know that with any certainty whatsoever. But the idea that not giving a homeless person that alcohol is somehow going to cure them or make their life any better seems ridiculous at best, and uncharitable and obnoxiously self-righteous at worst.

Apparently there’s already a local ordinance in force that prohibits passing out alcohol in public parks — which seems weird enough, why would that be a problem? — but the code does not apply to city streets or right of ways, a loophole that Foster is trying to close. He’s sent a memo to the mayor and other city council members urging them to make it illegal to hand out alcohol in essentially any public space. If you want to give your neighbor a bottle of wine this Christmas, you better be careful not to hand it to him on the sidewalk. Stay on your own property if you don’t want to break the law. Apparently it doesn’t matter that alcohol is legal for adults and giving gifts is likewise not a crime, but don’t put those two things together in Florida. Yeah, that seems reasonable.

In the memo Foster claims “Mr. Preston is an affront to every business owner and resident of the downtown area, and should not be a welcomed figure in St. Petersburg.” An affront? An affront is a “deliberate act or display of disrespect,” an “intentional slight.” I don’t know who Bill Foster thinks he is, but he obviously believes people should be bowing and scraping to his delusions of grandeur. Can he really have convinced himself that Preston is giving the homeless booze to personally offend him? This is a difference of opinion at best. I don’t see how it’s the business of government to regulate where citizens can commit a legal act like gift-giving? Foster may not like what Preston’s doing but in a free society that should be the end of it. But Bill Foster apparently believes a free society is only one where people do what he likes, and apparently he’s not even the only nut job on the city council.

“Is that really the best gift you can give somebody sleeping outside—bourbon?” said Rene Flowers. “I don’t know what a bottle of bourbon goes for these days, but I’m sure that would buy some soap, a small washrag, maybe a comb, some coffee, maybe a nice, hot meal.”

Where exactly would a homeless person use a washrag and soap exactly since they probably don’t have a bathtub for them to use there in Williams Park? And while a nice dinner does sound good, why does Flowers think that private citizens have to confine their charity to what she thinks is appropriate? For all their posturing, the homeless problem itself is never addressed by the city council, only that a private citizen shouldn’t be allowed to give them a little comfort from time to time at his own expense. It really doesn’t matter if you or anyone else thinks giving alcohol to a homeless person is a bad idea, in a free society any private citizen is and ought to be allowed to choose both the scope and nature of his charity. They should be applauding the fact that’s he’s doing something, anything. But from the response of the city council, they don’t seem overly concerned about the homeless people themselves. The very fact that there is such a homeless problem in this medium-sized town (the population is just under 250,000) suggests that whatever the city council is doing, if anything, it has not alleviated the situation or the conditions that caused these people to become homeless in the first place. Maybe it’s the guilt over their own failures that makes them lash out over someone merely trying to provide a little solace and comfort to someone whose life is, I can only assume, complicated and difficult, to say the least. But please, let’s stop attacking alcohol already, shall we? I’d like to get back to talking about beer again, thank you very much.

 

If you want to hear more about this, a local Tampa television, Tampa Bay 10, station did a report that’s online. Also, a Los Angeles radio station recently did an interview with Evander Preston which you can listen to online.
 

North Carolina Targets Parents

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One of my favorite things about the internet, is how cyclical and serpentine it can be. You can start out somewhere and if you follow enough tangents — something I can’t frankly help — you end up in new and wonderful places or, at a minimum, at a place you either didn’t expect to find or didn’t know was out there. I find a lot of the things I write about by happy accident. One thing leads to another and before I know it I’ve stumbled yet again on something I think worth writing about myself. A good example of this is some new laws in North Carolina that took effect December 1. I learned of these new laws through a blog, The Agitator, which I found at another blog, Coffee and Diapers, which is a parenting blog that picked up on my earlier post about Mothers For Social Drinking (which I also originally found by accident).

At any rate, the original story came from a television station in the Raleigh-Durham area, WRAL Channel 5, which is a place I actually lived for several years. I used to be, in the early 1980s, a record buyer for a large chain of stores headquartered in Durham, North Carolina and lived in both Durham and later Chapel Hill. Having grown up in the northeastern state of Pennsylvania, being in the south was a real eye-opener, but that’s a story for another day.

Anyway, some forty new state laws went into effect at the beginning of December and their story addressed a few of them. They started out with the alcohol-related ones for whatever reason and there’s a couple of doozies. The first one that caught my attention I’m not really against per se, but I think it’s illustrative of how oddly people think about alcohol. From the WRAL story:

One law bans devices known as “alcohol inhalers,” which convert liquor into a mist that can be inhaled by the user. Lawmakers were concerned that the devices, which were assembled and distributed by a Greensboro company, were being marketed to underage drinkers.

Okay, to be clear, I think this sounds like a bad idea and it goes against my personal philosophies on the moderate enjoyment of alcohol and also because I’ve never been a fan of anything that has to enter my body through my nose. I knew plenty of people in the 1980s who disagreed with my personal nasal entry ban (my rhinoprohibition), but I never begrudged them their day in the snow. So okay, somebody figured out a way to snort alcohol. I wouldn’t do it myself, and I can’t understand why anyone else would want to either. But here’s what I really don’t get. “Lawmakers were concerned (my emphasis) that the devices were being marketed to underage drinkers.” Huh? So they decided that an ostensibly legal product should be made illegal precisely because minors might try to buy it. Let me put that another way. As an adult, I can no longer buy a (previously) legal product because law enforcement cannot effectively keep people (minors in this case) from illegally obtaining it. So effectively because they can’t stop underage use of this product, they’re willing to take away every adult’s right to buy it. Please tell me how that makes any sense whatsoever? That is about as ridiculous a justification for making something illegal as I’ve ever heard. Fast food is marketed to kids and demonstrably terrible for their health, yet I don’t see these same lawmakers rushing to ban Big Macs, Whoppers or happy meals. Soda is even worse, yet schools allow soft drink companies to put soda vending machines in schools. Apparently, that’s okay too. I guess it’s okay for our kids to be fat and toothless but heaven forbid they might even consider snorting a mist of alcohol despite the fact that it’s already against the law for them to do so. Just the possibility of that — there do not appear to be any actual facts of underage use — makes them locate their spines to “protect the children” and take one more step toward making their state fit only for children. How noble. How absurd.

But the one that got The Agitator worked up — and I can certainly see why — is this one:

Also, as of Saturday, people can lose their driver’s licenses for providing alcohol to anyone under 21. The penalty is important because many underage drinkers get alcohol from friends or family members, said Craig Lloyd, the executive director of the North Carolina chapter of Mothers Against Drunk Driving.

The law means that, theoretically, parents could be punished for giving a glass of wine to their 20-year-old son or daughter, even if the 20-year-old never gets behind the wheel.

Lloyd said that’s not excessive.

“It’s a zero-tolerance policy,” he said. “Breaking the law is breaking the law.”

As Radley Balko at the Agitator put it:

I know what you’re thinking. Surely authorities would never barge into someone’s home and arrest them for allowing their 18, 19, or 20-year-old son or daughter to have a beer, right?

Well, you’d think. But then, if you’d told me police might come to the home of a minor’s parents at 4 am, wake the entire family, then give the girl a breath test to see if she had been drinking at a party held hours earlier, I’d have been dubious, too.

But it’s happened. Never underestimate the absurd lengths to which the zero tolerance crowd will go to keep your kid stone-cold sober.

The link above is to an ALCU story from Michigan where apparently they’re the only state — for now, at least —where it’s “illegal for young adults and minors who are not driving to refuse a breathalyzer test when the police do not have a search warrant. Those who refuse to take tests in Michigan are guilty of a civil infraction and must pay a $100 fine.” under Mich. Comp. Laws § 436.1703(6).

And there was at least one instance that you can just see being repeated both there and in North Carolina, as well.

Ashley Berden was 18 years old when she attended a party at a friend’s house to celebrate her graduation from Swan Valley High School. After she left the party, Thomas Township police officers arrived and found her purse which she had forgotten. They then came to Berden’s house at 4:00 a.m., woke up her family and demanded that she take a breath test. The police did not have a warrant but they informed her that would be violating the law if she refused the test. The test registered a .00% blood-alcohol level, indicating that Berden had not been drinking.

Pretty scary stuff. Especially when you consider that in societies where parents are allowed to raise their own children as they see fit, there is a much lower incidence of abuse later in life. But this new North Carolina law will make any parent who gives their own son or daughter even a taste of beer or wine to educate them a criminal. In effect, the state of North Carolina has decreed they can do a better job of raising your children than you can. Naturally, the North Carolina chapter of Mothers Against Drunk Driving sees the world in stark black and white whereas the rest of us can see all the shades of gray that parenting really entails. Because it seems to me that they really believe they can do a better job of raising my child than I can. They seem to have all the answers and really believe they know best. In their world an adult is no longer an adult but must live in a world where anything unsafe for children is no longer allowed for adults, either. In their world, a parent has little or no control over how and what they can teach their children about the world. That’s what zero-tolerance really means. It means tolerating only one way of life over all others. That’s as scary a world as I can imagine, a world that is the very opposite of free.

 

MADD Takes On Gladys Kravitz Role

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The Florida chapter of the neo-prohibitionist group MADD is trying a novel approach to keep everyone but the teetotalers off the street: become Gladys Kravitz. If that doesn’t ring a bell, she was the very nosy neighbor on the 60’s-era television show Bewitched. Not only did she watch through the curtains from across the street, but also on occasion stalked Samantha and Darrin Stevens’ house, peering in the windows, looking for proof that “something was going on.” It seems that watching the neighbors was all she did, having little time left to live her own life outside of her singular pursuit.

In Tampa, MADD volunteers are set to test a pilot program throughout Hillsborough County called the Traffic Observation Program, with Florida’s executive director for MADD, Don Murray, hoping to take the program statewide.

Here’s how the St. Petersburg Times describes how the program would work:

Recruit 20 volunteers armed with donated cell phones and send them out in the middle of the night to watch for telltale signs of drunk drivers.

Murray envisions a program that will pair up community members who are willing to go through a screening process, including a criminal background check and an interview to ensure that those going out on the streets have proper training and experience.

“This isn’t like a vigilante program,” Murray said. “They won’t be attempting to stop or in any way interacting with these vehicles. They’re basically just observers.”

Volunteers will go out in teams. They will drive their own vehicles and take GPS equipment, so they’ll be able to find their way through unfamiliar areas for two to four hours of searching, Murray said. They’ll be told ahead of time of the sometimes-subtle clues for drunk drivers, such as driving under the speed limit or lingering too long at a green light, Murray said.

If participants spot a suspicious driver, they will jot down the license plate, a vehicle description and a location and notify the Sheriff’s Office. It’s up to the deputy to check out the vehicle to determine whether an arrest is appropriate, Murray said.

MADD’s New Watchdog Program

 Maybe it’s just me, but when I have my kids in the car, I do drive slower, usually the speed limit, which in hurried California is almost always slower than the flow of traffic. So that would make me a target of drunken suspicion? Or if I don’t immediately peel out of an intersection during the fraction of a second when the light turns green, I’m a possible drunk driver? Maybe Florida has changed a lot since the last time I was there, but there used to be a disproportionately aged population, who tend to drive somewhat slower as a rule, at least in my experience. Under such conditions, I don’t see how driving slow will be much of a tip to anything, except perhaps to harass the more careful drivers in Tampa. Maybe all the slow drivers will become disillusioned over being wrongly accused all the time and begin driving faster to avoid MADD’s critical gaze. Now wouldn’t that make the roads less safe?

But most kidding aside, despite Murray’s protests to the contrary, this very much is a vigilante program. Giving anti-alcohol groups the power to lurk around and report anyone they want to local authorities who are already pre-disposed to take their side is a very bad idea in an increasingly police state. To me, this just has “bad idea” written all over it. Who wants to live in a society where you’re always looking over your shoulder and never being sure who you can trust or who might turn you in if you happen to accidentally stumble?

One of the rationalizations for this program that MADD’s John Murray gives is a concern that potential budget cuts would reduce the number of police officers on the road. This, to me, is a great illustration of how out of whack neo-prohibitionist priorities are. He’s not worried that a reduced police force would have a harder time contending with drive-by shootings, road rage, murder, robbery, rape, domestic disputes, or any of the things normal people might worry about. No, to MADD, less police means more alcohol drinkers might slip through the icy fingers of justice. That’s the biggest problem facing our society, that John or Jane Doe have one drink too many and drive home too slowly. These people need some perspective, and they need to get a life. Please, close the damn curtains.

 

Alabama Loses One to Fire

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There are already painfully few craft brewers in Alabama and yesterday another one — Olde Towne Brewing — was lost, destroyed by fire. It had been Huntsville, Alabama’s only brewery since Prohibition ended, opening in 2004. According to the Huntsville Times, the fire began in the middle of the night — around 2:30 a.m. — and by morning was gone. Owner Don Alan Hankins had returned to his native Hunstville to open the brewery after having worked at and founded several more throughout the Southeast. So far, no one’s sure what started the fire.

 

Miami’s New Vices

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A south Florida distributor friendly to craft beer, Fresh Beer Inc., sent in the following article that ran in Thursday’s Miami Herald, entitled “Microbrewers push the envelope with extreme beer” (thanks Adam). It’s a nice overview of the recent spate of big beers with some history and examples, perfect for the uninitiated and enthusiast alike. Florida, in part because of their hot, humid weather and also an entrenched distributor network (not to mention the Florida crown and package size laws instituted after Prohibition, both of which happily have finally gone the way of the Dodo), Florida has for a long time been a tough sell for craft beer and many imports. Oh, there are definitely fans — I’ve met more than a few over the years — but by and large statewide sales are driven by big brands that rely heavily on price. It sounds like things are beginning to change, which is terrific news for craft beer.
 

Tennessee Scopes Out the Future

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When I turned 21, oh so many years ago, the state I grew up in — Pennsylvania — still didn’t have pictures on their driver’s licenses. As a result, the Pennsylvania Liquor Control Board had their own method for insuring that no one under the age of 21 could get served. It was called a PLCB card, though we called our “drinking card.” A few weeks before you reached the magic age when you could drink in public, you went to one of those old photo booths where you got four black and white photos for a few ducats, filled out a form and returned it to any State Store (which in Pennsylvania is the only place where you can legally buy wine and spirits off-premise). Then anytime after your birthday, you returned to pick up your laminated drinking card complete with cheesy photo. I still have mine. Naturally, once they started issuing photo driver’s licenses, the PLCB card was discontinued.

Around that same time, MADD railroaded through the National Minimum Drinking Age Act, which effectively took the decision about a minimum drinking age away from the states and created a federal standard by tying it to federal highway subsidies. That was 1984 and since then the drive to make it harder for everyone to get their hands on alcohol in the name of protecting children only grows worse. MADD and the neo-prohibitionists seem never to be satisfied.

So around that same time signs started appearing on retail counters by the cash register that said something like “If You Look 25, You Will Be Carded” or words to that effect. I was around 25 at the time and while it was a little annoying and inconvenient, the novelty of being able to prove my status as an adult hadn’t fully worn off yet. Also, I knew that at 25 many people look young enough to actually be underage, so I could at least understand the rationale for it under the heightened scrutiny the MADD-era had ushered in. But then a curious thing happened. A few years later the sign read “If You Look 30” and then a little later “If You Look 35,” loosely keeping pace with my own aging. It became increasing irritating on those few occasions that I left my wallet at home and looked nothing like a 21-year old. It’s oddly Orwellian to me that I have to have my “papers” on me at all times, constantly having to prove my identity or my status as an adult. At law, we’re presumed innocent but at alcohol we’re presumed underage unless we can prove otherwise.

Now that I’m well into my forties, I’m still routinely carded at some places even though my hair is graying, thinning and I have a goatee that is almost entirely gray and white. I’ve had people tell me that I should be flattered to appear so young but that really has nothing to do with it any longer. Even when I did look younger I felt it was a very weak argument. What’s flattering about constantly having to prove I’m not a child? Most establishments card everybody today not because they can’t tell who’s young and who’s not, but because they’re rightly scared of governmental regulators and what might happen to their bottom line should a minor accidentally slip through their net and get some alcohol. I’ve been old enough to drink more than half of my life now and look almost nothing like the gawky, awkward kid I was 27 years ago. The idea that I still have to prove that I am 21 because MADD and the neo-prohibitionists convinced the state that stopping kids from drinking was more important that my being treated like an adult, and they in turn made the penalty for sellers of alcohol so out of proportion that they have no choice but to overdo enforcement, pisses me off more than I can tell you.

  

As an aside, something I never noticed before is that we are the only nation in the world where you have to be 21 to drink legally. In every single other country, the age is below 21, the vast majority of countries set the age quite sensibly at 18. In two countries it’s 20 (Iceland and Japan) and in South Korea it’s 19. In many European countries the minimum drinking age is 16 (including Belgum, France, Germany, Italy and the Netherlands). Ten sovereign states, including China and Portugal, have no minimum at all. I knew as a society we were ridiculously conservative and puritanical, but I didn’t realize that the moral bullys had saddled us with the highest age in the entire world at which we confer full adulthood on our citizens. I think I just assumed we were among the most backward nations, not the out and out leader of looneyville when it comes to the minimum age for alcohol (setting aside, of course, those countries that don’t allow alcohol for any of their citizens). Sheesh, how embarrassing.

But now the state of Tennessee is poised to make it mandatory that every single person in the state must “show the proper I.D.” (a phrase that fairly begs to be said in a thick, German accent) with no exception. One foot in the grave? Too bad, prove you’re an adult. Grey-haired Grandpa out with his grandbabies in tow? Too bad, you just might be wearing old man makeup. U.S. Senator, a position you can’t hold unless you’re at least 30 years old? Too bad, no exceptions. It’s called the “The Tennessee Responsible Vendor Act” and it goes into effect on July 1. As is typical with these neo-prohibitionist programs, it claims to be designed to combat underage drinking. That is, of course, a completely deceptive lie insofar as it will do nothing of the kind. Making a 90-year old person so obviously over 21 that only a person with an I.Q. below 50 (such as someone with a moderate mental disability or a neo-prohibitionist) will not stop one underage person from obtaining alcohol. What it will do is make it more difficult and annoying for everyone, instead of just the people “lucky” enough to look younger.

In their press release of “Success Stories,” the neo-prohibitionist group Underage Drinking Enforcement Training Center celebrates their victory in getting this law passed and characterizes the law as “an innovative and strong step in the fight against underage drinking. The mandatory ID provision of this law is the first of its’ kind in the country and establishes Tennessee as a national leader on the initiative to stop underage drinking.” Yet they fail, as does every single other account of this law, to say exactly how or why requiring “anyone purchasing beer for off-premise consumption to present identification” will in any way reduce underage drinking. I think there’s a good reason no one is discussing why this law will reduce underage drinking. It’s because it doesn’t stand up to any logic or scrutiny, so it’s best to just use meaningless platitudes.

The continual raising of the age at which you have to prove that you’re an adult does absolutely nothing to alter the daily millions of individual exchanges between customer and retailer, apart from the ones involving legal adults who are far removed from the threshold age. Kids will always find a way to get alcohol. It’s their very resourcefulness that insures they’ll be successful adults, too. They can still get a fake I.D., of course, and getting an adult to buy beer for a minor isn’t going to stop. Then there’s stealing from parents, neighbors and the like. Kids in my day always found a way, and today’s generations are no different. Making me show my I.D. does nothing to keep the 19-year old behind me in line from using his fake I.D. It’s like all the increased security at airports. It gives only the illusion of actually doing anything to stop terrorism and makes life difficult for everybody in the process.

That Tennessee will be the first state to enact a law making it mandatory that every person wishing to legally purchase alcohol must definitively prove their status as an adult every single time they want to do so is as dubious a distinction as being the first state to … let’s see, how about sue a teacher for teaching evolution. It’s really difficult to not make comparisons to the Scopes trial, because it points out such backward thinking, in my opinion. I have some good friends from Tennessee, so I know it’s not everybody there.

But everything I’ve written about so far isn’t even the worst part. So strap in as I reveal the next part of this law. I don’t want to be responsible for any injuries when you fall out of your chair. Ready? Here goes. The Tennessee Responsible Vendor Act does NOT apply to wine or spirits, just Beer! Yup, that’s not a typo. Grandpa can buy a fifth of Jack Daniels or a bottle of Old Thunderbird without being carded. But throw a six-pack of barley pop up on the counter and it’s a whole new ballgame. The law covers just off-premises consumption, meaning retailers. Restaurants and bars (known as on-premises) are also exempt, so essentially the law targets just people buying beer to drink at home or otherwise in some private or public setting (like a picnic in a park).

According to the Knoxville News Sentinel, some retailers have already begun carding everybody, such as Roadrunner Markets, and they seem publicly on board.

John Kelly, chief operating officer for Roadrunner Markets, implemented the policy last year. Carding everyone makes it less likely that a clerk mistakenly sell beer to someone who is underage, he said, and regular customers quickly got used to having to show an ID. Most now arrive at the counter with their identification in hand.

“The universal carding law means that all retailers are on the same page,” said Kelly. “There will be consistent training of clerks. Customers can expect to have their ID checked at any store in Tennessee that sells beer.”

Of course, they really have no choice so kowtowing makes the most sense, since they want to remain in the good graces of state agencies that have the power to regulate them. That’s the same reason these laws get passed in the first place. No politician who wants to be reelected would dare oppose new laws that claim their purpose is to curb underage drinking.

The idea that beer is singled out like this is infuriating, to say the least, and shows in stark relief the bias against beer that exists in our society. And as the comment above about “regular customers quickly [getting] used to having to show an ID” shows, most people will just passively comply regardless of their personal feelings, not that they have much choice. How do you make your objections known in any meaningful way?

Unfortunately, it’s difficult to oppose these laws simply because they’re sold using protecting children as the carrot, bait no one can afford not to take. Truth and logic count for nothing against the emotions of keeping kids safe. That’s why neo-prohibitionists use this tactic, because they know it’s effective and is difficult to counter. That it’s dishonest doesn’t seem to matter one wit, a fact I find particularly onerous given that so many neo-prohibitionists are also very religious. I guess the goal of another prohibition has its own morality in which the ends justify the means, the slipperiest slope of all.

The ray of hope is that the law expires after one year so that lawmakers have an opportunity to “review its impact.” Perhaps it will enough of a fiasco that it will not be renewed and likewise will not inspire other states to follow Tennessee’s lead.

 

Georgia Action Alert

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I almost missed posting this before it’s too late. According to the new grassroots organization, Support Your Local Brewery, there’s legislation in Georgia that will be bad for small brewers and their ability to offer samples of their beer at their brewery during tours. The vote is on Tuesday, June 19 so if you’re in Georgia contact your Congressperson as soon as possible, and no later than the end of the business day on Monday.

Here’s the press release from SYLB:

Georgia’s beer consumers and brewers are facing a threat that could adversely impact the business operations of in-state breweries and consequently your access to Georgia’s craft-brewed beer.

The Georgia Department of Revenue is proposing to adopt a new rule that would severely restrict beer tasting for attendees of brewery tours (please refer to the Synopsis for the actual rule language). The Department will consider adoption of this rule on Tuesday, June 19 – now is the time to make your voice heard in opposition to this rule.

Please read the following information which includes a message from Terrapin Beer Co.’s John Cochran who has been working with Georgia’s small production breweries to oppose this measure. You will find all the information you need for contacting the Commissioner of the Department of Revenue.

John has also included a suggested message to send, and Support Your Local Brewery suggests you visit the Beer Serves America web site for detailed information on the economic contribution of Georgia’s beer community to state coffers. Please consider including some of this information in your message to underscore the valuable economic contribution being made, which in no way should be jeopardized.

Thanks for your support in protecting Georgia’s brewers and beer consumers.

If you want to read the a synopsis of the bill itself, you can view it at the SYLB website.

From John Cochran of Terrapin Beer Co.:

All Georgia breweries need your help. We recently received notice that the Georgia Department of Revenue has decided to change the rules that apply to tours at breweries in Georgia. The new proposal calls for a limit of a 2oz pour of each beer style on the tour with a maximum limit of only 16oz. The 16oz pour is only possible if we have eight different styles of beer to offer on the tour. If a brewery only has four beers available to taste, then only 8oz can be poured at the tour.

It is the belief of the Georgia breweries, and our wholesalers, that the proposed rule change would effectively kill the tours. Since the breweries have spent significant sums of money on tasting rooms for the purposes of conducting tours this investment would be lost. In addition it would cause the layoff of employees who now operate as tour guides and could cause serious harm to the bottom line of all breweries. The tours are our main marketing tool and by losing the ability to continue tours as they are currently structured, we would lose customers, lose sales, and find it much more difficult to continue in business.

If you have enjoyed tours at Sweetwater and Atlanta Brewing in the past and you would like to continue to enjoy tours at those locations and at Terrapin Beer Company (tours starting this fall if these proposed changes do not take effect) then please take the time to help fight for our rights.

Atlanta Brewing, Sweetwater and Terrapin have worked together to craft a response to the proposed rule changes. If you agree with us that the proposed rule change is egregious and will harm the brewery tours and thereby harm our businesses, please take the time to send the attached response to the Department of Revenue, as indicated below.

E-mail your comments to regcomments@dor.ga.gov and be sure to include a reference to “NOTICE NUMBER AT-2007-1” on any correspondence you send.

The SYLB also helpfully has a template of a short letter you can use to send, which I reprinted below:

To: Commissioner Graham

Re: Notice Number AT-2007-1
560-2-2-.61

The Georgia Department of Revenue has proposed a significant change in the states’ long standing policy on service limitations for brewery tours. The proposed new rule will adversely affect my decision as a customer of the breweries, to attend the tours. By doing so it will also put at risk the brewer’s investment in facilities designed to attract and accommodate tour attendees such as myself and will severely limit the marketing and sales of the brewery’s products. I oppose adoption of the proposed rule change and respectfully urge the department to withdraw proposed rule 3a.

Sincerely,
YOUR NAME AND ADDRESS HERE

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More CBC Photos

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As my grandfather was fond of saying, “the faster I go, the behinder I get.” I’ve only now gotten around to going through the rest of the photos that I took in Austin, Texas while attending the 2007 Craft Brewers Conference. They’re all pretty random, but they’re now posted at the photo gallery if you’re interested in seeing them.

The White brothers from White Labs bookending Chuck, from Green Fash Brewing, Natalie Cilurzo, from Russian River Brewing, John Harris, from Full Sail Brewing, and Vinnie Cilurzo, also from Russian River.

Greg Koch, me, and Justin Crossley, from the Brewing Network, along with Steve Mosqueda from the Drinking and Writing podcast and Pete Crowley, from Rock Bottom in Chicago.

For many more photos from the Craft Brewers Conference, visit the photo gallery.

Celis’ Return to Texas Doubtful

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In his regular column, The Beer Sphere, in the Dallas/Forth Worth Star-Telegram, Barry Shlachter reports that the “long-anticipated collaboration between Belgian brewing legend Pierre Celis and Texas’ Real Ale Brewing Co. has fallen through.”

From Shlachter’s column:

“Just too many obstacles,” said Brad Farbstein, president of the Blanco-based micro-brewery.

Real Ale’s proposed “Brussels” line of ales based on Celis recipes was scuttled because the state interpreted the deal as violating Texas’ contract brewing regulations.

Complicating the arrangement was Celis investing in his daughter’s drinking establishment in the Austin area, Farbstein said. Texas’ three-tiered system — production, wholesaling and retailing — forbids participation in more than one sector.

Well that’s certainly bad news. It would have been nice to see Pierre return triumphantly to the states.

Vinnie Cilurzo’s Keynote Address

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Vinnie Cilurzo gave the keynote address at this year’s Craft Brewers Conference in Austin, Texas. Hoping to spark a new tradition, like Sam Calagione last year, he served some of his own beer so everyone assembled could drink a toast to craft beer’s success and to everyone’s efforts that led to that success. He set out bottles of the second batch of Russian River’s Beatification.

Vinnie spoke in part about innovation and the innovative contributions of many of the early pioneers of craft brewing. The video below is a little more than half of Ciilurzo’s speech from near the beginning until the toast. My memory card ran out at that point.