Coming soon to a bar in California: more crap you don’t need trying to buy customer loyalty for beer you don’t like! Today, the California state senate GO committee passed AB 1245 (a.k.a. the Trash & Trinkets bill) by a vote of 7-1. It will now move forward toward a rendezvous with the appropriations committee sometime in the next 4-5 weeks. If approved there, it will then move on to the Senate floor, the Assembly Go committee, the Assembly appropriations committee, the Assembly floor and then finally to the Governor’s desk for signature or veto.

The bill, sponsored by Anheuser-Busch, will without question confer yet another economic advantage on large corporations and again make it harder for small breweries to compete. How out-of-touch do our state senators have to be, to think that’s a good idea? Or is it simply a matter of looking where their campaign financing came from to figure out why they’d vote so obviously against small businesses?

A big thanks to my good friend, John Bryant, from Odell Brewing, who flew out from Colorado to testify on behalf of small brewers, and also to Susan Little, who owns St. Stan’s in Modesto (and where one of the senators on the committee also hails from). Also, thanks to those of you who contacted your senators to help the cause. It’s not over yet, though this is obviously a setback.