Government Crack-Down on Beer Samples at Breweries!
Feb.02, 2007 in
beer
MNBeer.com is reporting that new brewpub legislation is trying to put a cap on free sample sizes:
MNBeer – Brewery & Brewpub Legislation: Are You Aware?
(c) A brewer may provide samples of its own products on its premises to persons touring the brewery in a quantity of less than 100 milliliters of malt liquor per variety per person.
That’s like 3 ounces!
6th District State Senator Thomas Bakk is the person behind the amendments to the brewpubs bill. He represents the lake shore communities along Lake Superior and the forest and lakes North to Canada, including Ely.
This doesn’t seem like a large brewpub area to me, so I don’t understand why Sen. Bakk would find this legislation important to his constituents.
Did you know it’s already illegal for a brewer to give away free samples in the same retail store more than 5 times in a calendar year? What’s up with that?
February 2nd, 2007 at 10:51 am
Never ceases to amaze me the type of ridiculous issues our government spends resources on at times.
There are less than 50 brew pubs in the state vs. some 10,000 bars (surely a bar for every lake). So, if the concern is people getting too drunk from free samples, I’m pretty sure there are many other people out there getting more drunk off cheap beer at the other local bars.
If this is about brewpubs giving our free samples and hurting the for-sale bar business, I think that’s got to be a small impact.
And, overiding all of this is the fact that brewpubs have a somewhat natural mechanism to prevent giving out too much free beer…it’s call profit margins.
So, when Bud moves here and decides it’ll give unlimited free samples to all Eli residents, we might have an issue. Until then, would seem like there’s something better to spend time and energy on…like putting up more signs on all buildings describing which items are banned from the premises.
February 2nd, 2007 at 11:15 am
Kyle Cannon, I fashion you as a Coors guy.
Here’s one I could see coming: bars painting smoking perimeters on their sidewalks.
February 2nd, 2007 at 9:17 pm
Maybe if they collect the value of the lost sales tax on the free sample amounts, then the govt would have to shut-the-eff up.
I’m with Kyle, until the legislators start getting the real govt business and their budgets done without special sessions, I think they would do deal not to get distracted with non-issues like free beer samples at licensed breweries.