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School House Rock
Colorado’s HB 1192 was defeated yesterday. The House Business Affairs Committee killed the bill by a vote of 7-4. This bill would have allowed full strength beer to be sold in grocery stores. Many local brewers rallied to combat this bill and they were successful. It’s nice to know the Colorado craft beer lobby has some clout. No word yet if there is any victory micro brewing away in someone’s vat. I’ll keep my eye out.
Although the debate is over, the community is still divided on the issue. It boiled down to this: will this change hurt local brewers and liquor stores? In other states, such as Oregon and California, these states already allow full strength beer and wine sales with no measureable effect on local businesses.
Personally, I’ve always thought that Colorado liquor sale laws were annoying. If I wanted to get stuff to make pasta and a bottle of wine, it would require two stops instead of one. It was always fun to try to explain why one is unable to buy full strength liquor on Sundays to out of state friends. The same friend would also laugh when after walking out the grocery store we would then go next door to buy liquor. I don’t however miss the entire state planning their three day weekends knowing full well that on day two, no liquor could be purchased.
However, I leave you with this: Necessity is often the mother of invention and we are often the products of our environments. Would we have the number of breweries that we do today if Colorado wasn’t, well… Colorado? I hope young visionaries will still wonder “Maybe I can brew beer too?”
Comments
I think Colorado liquor laws suck too, but then I read a very informative article, in the unlikely pages of the Colorado Springs Gazette, saying that studies show microbreweries and small liquor stores would be hurt by supermarket sales. I love microbrews (I'm from England) so I want to keep them all going, especially the small and unusual ones.
Deep down, I have to support the brewers. I don't think this would have affected brew pubs at all. However, breweries that bottle and sell here in Colorado would feel it the most. Oregon has tons of brew pubs (more than CO) that brew only for the attached restaurants and bars. Unless we go on a beer pilgrimage, we'll never taste those brews. Would passing a law like this turn some of our breweries into brewpubs that don't sell or ship? I hope not.
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