Sunday Sales clears the Senate, moves on to the House
The Sunday Sales bill miraculously gained some steam recently. As in today. From the AJC:
By a 32-22 vote, the Senate passed Senate Bill 10, which would allow local communities to vote whether to allow retail stores to sell alcohol on Sunday.
This is good (and some would argue unexpected) news. We will see what happens in the House.
Sunday Sales in Georgia will have to wait
According to a source at WSBTV, a bill that would allow Sunday liquor sales in Georgia is dead in the water… again. While Sunday Sales has been one of those bills that gets resurrected and then promptly killed every year (like a friendly, lovable zombie), 2011 brought new hope:
Previous efforts to allow Sunday alcohol sales in Georgia have stalled amid a veto threat from former Gov. Sonny Perdue. However, Gov. Nathan Deal has said he would not veto such a measure.
Support among voters has also been mixed, along geographic boundaries. 67% of Metro Atlanta residents are in favor of Sunday sales, while only 31% of South Georgians favor the bill. Georgia is only one of three states that currently doesn’t allow alcohol sales on Sunday from stores.
Georgia’s alcohol legislation has traditionally lagged behind most other states, and allowing Sunday Sales is often seen as a first step in progressing the state to a more alcohol-friendly culture. Perhaps in 2012.
Image source: KaisenVerdant
Georgia Sunday alcohol sales law faces test today
Sunday alcohol sales are currently illegal in Georgia, with limited exceptions (on-premise, at sports events, etc.). Today the Georgia state Senate panel will vote on a bill to allow Sunday alcohol sales. We here at Monday Night Brewery are, of course, rooting for the free market to knock some sense into the current legislation. According to the AJC,
Backers this year are touting the additional revenues selling beer and wine on Sundays could bring the cash-starved state. Opponents maintain it would sully what is a day of worship to many Georgians.
I am also a member of the Facebook group “Tell Sonny Perdue to Keep His Veto Pen Out of My Sunday Booze,” which has a few members going down to the legislature to protest today. If you’re in the area, throw out some “good beer vibes” and hopefully we can get this thing rolling.
Georgia is notoriously backwards in their beer legislation (though admittedly we have it better than Alabama). While Sunday sales wouldn’t be a huge step forward, it could certainly be the beginning of a series of laws making it easier to sell and buy craft beer in Georgia. And for that we are excited.
UPDATE: The vote was delayed for one more week because no one showed up. Thanks, legislators.
Photo via Silver Starre
Moonshine and C4
Read a great article in Wired recently about the underground production of moonshine. One of the highlights was a bit about a federal agent:
John Spidell misses the moonshine tradition. A former federal revenuer, the 65-year-old spent the first half of the ’70s “busting up” illegal stills in North Carolina. His job sometimes required living in a sleeping bag under a piece of canvas for weeks at a time, watching a big still, waiting for the owner to appear. Smaller stills got less attention.
“A five- or six-hundred-gallon outfit wasn’t worth wasting time on,” he says. “I’d go back to my vehicle, get the C4 explosives and blasting caps, and I’d blow it up. There were only so many of us, and only so much time.”
That’s right, C4! The full article is a pretty interesting read on the current state of moonshine.
I’m glad beer brewing is legal.
“Signs” of life in Georgia’s alcohol laws?
Our guv’na, Sonny Perdue, signed a couple wine laws at the last possible moment. While none of these is related to beer, it could provide a nice little backdrop for updating Georgia’s notoriously stingy beer laws. Three wine laws have recently been approved:
- The most exciting: ONLINE wine sales
- Sunday sales at Gwinnett stadium
- Ability to take half a bottle home from a restaurant (I think… I was still groggy when I heard this one on NPR this morning)
Let’s hope this positive trend continues. What next? God forbid we allow sales on Sunday! And lifting the max 14% ABV? No! (At least we don’t have it as bad as Alabama).
Alabama’s beer battle heats up
Could this be the year? Alabama’s beer laws, which were written by a caveman back when John McCain was born, may just get the updating they deserve. There have been a number of high-profile incidences lately, thanks in a large part to Free the Hops. Free the Hops is a grassroots organization lobbying for beer in Alabama (and therefore the South!) with these specific goals:
- A law allowing the sale of gourmet and imported beers with alcohol content as high as 13.9%.
- Alabama to join 46 other states by legalizing the home brewing of beer.
- To get rid of the state law making it illegal to sell bottles or cans of beer in anything larger than 16-ounce containers.
- To reform Alabama’s restrictive laws on brewpubs — requiring they be in historic buildings located in counties where beer was brewed before prohibition. That law has limited the number of brewpubs in the state to three.
There’s a great article in the world-renowned Montgomery Advertiser on the progress these beer laws are making. In a nutshell:
Two years ago, a bill to raise the level of alcohol in beers sold in Alabama was so dead that the House presented it the Shroud Award for the “deadest bill” of the session.
Now, the same bill has passed the House, and proponents believe it has the votes to pass in the Senate if it can be brought up for a vote.
I encourage everyone who lives in the South and loves beer to do what they can to help.
And I thought Georgia was bad
I was recently at a wedding out of state and explaining to a friend (from Colorado) how oppressive the beer laws in Georgia have been. For those of you who are new to this discussion said oppressions included the illegality of high gravity beers until a few years ago, complex laws that make it tough for breweries and no selling on Sunday to name a few. I thought we had it rough until I stumbled upon the “Free the Hops/Alabamians for Specialty Beer” group. Not only do they prohibit the sale of beer with over 6% ABV but they also have very tight restrictions on home-brewing (MNB could probably not exist in AL). From the site:
Of the Top 100 beers of the World at BeerAdvocate.com, a renowned beer review site, 98 cannot be sold in this state. Why is our choice so limited?
Currently, Alabama is one of only three states in the country that limits alcohol by volume (ABV) for beer to only 6%, and the only state that limits beer containers to a size of no more than 1 pint (16 ounces).
Perspective changes everything and Georgia doesn’t look quite so oppressive today.