(The Center Square) — A Georgia Senate committee did not advance legislation that could have transformed the state’s craft brewing scene.
Senate Bill 163 would have allowed “small brewers” to distribute up to 3,000 cases per year to retailers within a 100-mile radius without contracting with a distributor. It would also allow brewers and brewpubs to donate products for charitable events.
The committee did not advance the legislation by Wednesday’s deadline for bills to be out of committee, effectively killing it this year unless lawmakers add its provisions to another measure. A similar measure, House Bill 407, was introduced in the state House.
“These brewers are not asking for a tax credit; they’re not asking for a handout,” state Sen. Chuck Hufstetler, R-Rome, said during a Senate Regulated Industries and Utilities Committee hearing. “They want to pay their taxes, and they’ll pay more taxes by selling more product. They just want a free market, some competition to be able to sell [their] product from their brewery.”
Hufstetler pointed to neighboring North Carolina, saying the Tar Heel State allows brewers to sell a higher volume directly to consumers.
“I think it’s very important to make it clear: There’s not an opposing side to this,” Martin Smith, executive director of the Georgia Beer Wholesalers Association, told lawmakers. “The brewers of all sizes in Georgia and the distributors in Georgia are strategic partners, and that’s not just by saying we support their products or we have to work with them or anything like that.”
Smith said Georgia law requires brewers to assign their products to a distributor, but brewers decide the counties where to distribute it.
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