Legislator moves to hamstring craft brewers

[urbanlibertarian]

Another fine example of crony capitalism.  Businesses seeking government help to curtail competition.  Reps and Dems are equally guilty of this.

[FSBA]

I, personally, don't see the big brewers reasoning for attacking the growlers specifically.  I may be out of line with my reasoning but the consumer purchasing a growler at the brewery is not going to suddenly buy a Budweiser because he can't buy a growler. If that were true, maybe, we should outlaw small vineyards so we could see the increased sales in Mad Dog 2020.

It isn't the brewers so much as the distributors that want to see growlers dead. By law, all breweries have to use distributors. Growlers cut out the middleman.

[copperfiend]

It's funny (or sad really) that small businesses like craft breweries and food trucks work so hard to be sucessful. And because of those successes, these corporations (usually offering an inferior product) feel threatened and feel the need to use their money and power to get politicians to change the law. And the politicians know who line their pockets and draft this legislation.

[edjax]

 ^^+1,000

[finehoe]

It's funny (or sad really) that small businesses like craft breweries and food trucks work so hard to be sucessful. And because of those successes, these corporations (usually offering an inferior product) feel threatened and feel the need to use their money and power to get politicians to change the law. And the politicians know who line their pockets and draft this legislation.

And what's even sadder is that the brain-dead American electorate continues to re-elect these same politicians.

[Intuition Ale Works]

Article about the fight we face in Tallahassee because of Anheuser Busch wholesalers power and money.

Beer distributors, brewers fight over growlers 

BY BRENDAN FARRINGTON
ASSOCIATED PRESS
TALLAHASSEE, Fla. -- Florida allows craft breweries to fill and sell unlimited amounts of gallon- and quart-sized beer jugs, popularly called growlers. But half-gallon growlers, the most-popular size in the 47 other states that allow them, are banned.

That has long vexed the typically small Florida craft beer makers, who ask: Why does the Legislature refuse to change a law it can't explain and that seemingly goes against its opposition to overregulation in other industries?

"I don't know," Senate President Don Gaetz said when recently asked by The Associated Press why half-gallon growlers are illegal.

But the Panhandle Republican, who says he's a free-market, anti-regulation, pro-business legislator, knows why the repeal is facing long odds again this year: a friend and major GOP donor, who happens to be a Budweiser distributor, asked him to support a bill that includes several provisions that the craft beer industry says will slow their rapid growth and could cause some to close.

While that sounds at odds with his principles, Gaetz acknowledged he will support whatever Anheuser-Busch InBev distributor Lewis Bear tells him to support.

"I'm with the beer distributors in my district," Gaetz said recently. "That's a very important issue because one of my very best friends is an Anheuser-Busch distributor and he never talks to me about his business. It's always about what are we going to do for disabled children, what are we going to do for the arts, what are we going to do for economic development. But this time he's talking about growlers."

Bear, his company and his family have contributed hundreds of thousands of dollars to political committees and candidates, including more than $260,000 to the Republican Party of Florida and $31,000 to GOP Gov. Rick Scott's campaign committee.

On top of that, political committees supported by Anheuser-Busch distributors and run by their lobbyist, Mitch Rubin, have donated about $1 million to candidates and political committees over the years, to both Republicans and Democrats. Neither Bear nor Rubin returned numerous calls for comment.

"That's so sad," said Jennifer Gratz, an owner of the Fort Myers Brewing Company, which opened last year. "Here we have the Senate president who's supposed to represent all of us in Florida and instead he's talking about just supporting his buddy who happens to be a large donor."

Distributors for the other major national beer company, MillerCoors, support legalizing half-gallon growlers.

If Florida makes half-gallon growlers legal, Bear wants strings attached that craft brewers say will hurt an industry that's grown from six breweries in 2007 to 50 last year and with another 28 getting ready to open this year.

Based on states that have had long-established craft brewing industries, Florida's population could eventually support 500 craft breweries, according to a University of Florida study of the industry commissioned by the Florida Brewers Guild.

But those soaring sales for craft beers pose competition for mass-produced beers like Budweiser.

Gaetz said he hoped a bill sponsored by Sen. Wilton Simpson, R-Trilby, dealing with growlers and craft breweries would get a Senate vote. But while Simpson met with Bear and was given bill language, he never filed it. Neither did any other senator.

While the bill would have legalized half-gallon containers, it would place other restrictions on breweries.

Sales of full-gallon containers would have been banned. Brewers would have been prevented from selling their products in bottles, cans and kegs at the brewery. The legislation would have also stopped brewers from selling beers they make in collaboration with other brewers and would have prohibited them having guest taps from which they sell other brewers' beer.

The proposal also would have set standards for labeling, sanitizing and sealing growlers that the Florida Brewers Guild believes are excessive. While there is no active bill in the Senate, it could re-emerge as a committee bill or an amendment to a growler bill that brewers support.

"It's extremely insulting and it's extraordinarily punitive," said Josh Aubuchon, a lobbyist who represents the Florida Brewers Guild. "It's so anti-free market, anti-consumer ... For no reason, in order for the craft breweries to get something positive, they have to give up something. It's ludicrous."

The Anheuser-Busch InBev distributors, who are independent of the brewing giant itself, also prepared a bill similar to Simpson's. Republican Rep. Ray Rodrigues of Fort Myers was asked to sponsor it.

Rodrigues didn't return three messages on his cellphone and one at his office seeking comment. Gratz's repeated attempts to contact Rodrigues about the issue also were unsuccessful.

"To have someone working against you who doesn't even want to take the time to sit down with you, it says a lot about him as a legislator and about him as a person," Gatz said.

Read more here: http://www.miamiherald.com/2014/03/16/3998610/beer-distributors-brewers-fight.html#morer#storylink=cpy

[icarus]

Its sad how some things don't change despite the electorate's knowledge.  I was at a lecture in Tallahassee by a former Florida Supreme Court justice turned lobbyist in the '90s.  He politely and confidently stated that for $3 million that he could get a client's name inserted in the State Constitution. I had no reason to doubt him at that time and I have no reason to doubt the same doesn't hold true now.

Regulation is bureaucracy's way of exerting control over something and politician's thrive on selling that control to constituents and supporters (political capital).

Does anyone know where our local representatives are on this issue?

[mbwright]

Very sad politics, but no surprise.  I recall the 22 oz bottle being illegal, not too long ago.  It is really stupid for the the large companies to think that a person that would buy a growler, would buy a Bud. Scott should stop this in its tracks, because it will cause job loss, and make Florida less competitive.   I personally think any size should be legal.

[TheCat]

One of the MJC twitter followers, @KenWilley, just shared this link with us on "free-market" republican Fl. Sen. Don Gaetz.

"I don't know," Senate President Don Gaetz said when recently asked by The Associated Press why half-gallon growlers are illegal.

But the Panhandle Republican, who says he's a free-market, anti-regulation, pro-business legislator, knows why the repeal is facing long odds again this year: a friend and major GOP donor, who happens to be a Budweiser distributor, asked him to support a bill that includes several provisions that the craft beer industry says will slow their rapid growth and could cause some to close.

While that sounds at odds with his principles, Gaetz acknowledged he will support whatever Anheuser-Busch InBev distributor Lewis Bear tells him to support.

"I'm with the beer distributors in my district," Gaetz said recently. "That's a very important issue because one of my very best friends is an Anheuser-Busch distributor and he never talks to me about his business. It's always about what are we going to do for disabled children, what are we going to do for the arts, what are we going to do for economic development. But this time he's talking about growlers."

Bear, his company and his family have contributed hundreds of thousands of dollars to political committees and candidates, including more than $260,000 to the Republican Party of Florida and $31,000 to GOP Gov. Rick Scott's campaign committee.

On top of that, political committees supported by Anheuser-Busch distributors and run by their lobbyist, Mitch Rubin, have donated about $1 million to candidates and political committees over the years, to both Republicans and Democrats. Neither Bear nor Rubin returned numerous calls for comment.

Read more here: http://www.miamiherald.com/2014/03/16/3998610/beer-distributors-brewers-fight.html#storylink=cpy

[thelakelander]

^It appears to be the same Miami Herald story that IAW posted in this thread yesterday.

[TheCat]

I totally missed it.

[mbwright]

politics as usual--Follow the money!!!!

[urbanlibertarian]

'Big Beer' wins a round in legislative battle with Fla. microbreweries

From politicalfixflorida.com:

James L. Rosica (@jlrosicaTBO) in Tallahassee

A bill that would require craft brewers to sell their suds to a beer distributor and make them buy it back to sell at their own breweries has cleared a Senate panel.

The measure (SB 1714) has so infuriated craft brewers and beer enthusiasts that some on Twitter have christened it with the hashtag "#growlergate." The Community Affairs committee approved the bill Tuesday.

Sen. Jack Latvala, R-Clearwater, was so incensed at the idea of craft brewers having to pay someone else to sell their own product that he likened it to a mobbed-up racket. Latvala has championed the microbrewery cause.

The requirement is similar to paying "protection to 'Vinnie' in New York," he said.

The bill also is favored by the Big Beer lobby, which is feeling the heat from craft beer's competition.

Sen. Kelli Stargel, R-Lakeland, is sponsoring the bill, which also allows the most popular size of beer "growlers," the 64-ounce size (that's a half-gallon).

Whole article here:

http://www.politicalfixflorida.com/2014/04/08/big-beer-wins-a-round-in-legislative-battle-with-fla-microbreweries/

[Tacachale]

This sucks.

[TheCat]