HB1284 Colorado Beer Bill Fails

Representative Larry Liston arguing in favor of the bill.

Today HB1284, the bill that would allow full strength beer to be sold in grocery and convenience stores, failed to be passed again. In fact, Destroyed might be a better word with the vote coming in at 46 to 17.  In a couple days you'll be able to watch an archive of the video from The Colorado Channel. We've gone over the bill a few times in the blog, you can read comments from both sides here as well as a response from Mike Bristol in the comment field here. Most people in the Colorado Craft Beer industry will be very enthusiastic about these results.

I was able to watch a little bit of the live feed before I had to go to work so I actually missed the final verdict. But there were a few interesting points that the side-in-favor made. One of those was a study by Henry Sobanet that concluded results that are very different from the Summit Economics study that is so often mentioned by dissenters. The other point was that in other states where all beer and alcohol are allowed in grocery stores, there is a higher per capta number of liquor stores. This was new news to me. On first glance I couldn't immediately find the exact study they were mentioning so I'm going to have to wait a few days and once the recording is uploaded I will go back and see which study they are talking about and try to find it online. I never did hear back from Summit Economics about how they acquired their data.

Also, Bristol Brewing did a great job giving a play-by-play on Twitter so that on my way to work I was able to keep up with what was happening. Thank you Bristol for doing that. For those of you who want to know exactly what happened, but don't have the patience to wait three days for the video to be uploaded on The Colorado Channel, I am going to post their updates below before they get sent into the never-ever-land of the Twittersphere:

From Bristol's Twitter:

- HB1284 is on the floor of the house.

- Rep Liston says consumers are "confused" by 3.2 beer.

- Soper: "will every g- and c-store have to go to a hearing to get the new license?" Liston: "not if they already have a 3.2 license"

- Soper: "I've been promised that if this passes I'll never hear another bill from g-stores about wine or liquor again. Do you commit to that?

- Liston: "I promise I won't talk about wine or liquor in g-stores"

- Amendment L-010, no caffeinated alcoholic beverages, passes

- Amendment L-011, no alc bev consumed in stores, no stores w/in 500 feet of a school, passes.

- Amend. L-012, caps ABV in g- and c-stores at 11% ("alcopops"), is being discussed from a public safety standpoint.

- L-012 does not apply to liquor stores.

- L-012 would also apply to barley wines, double IPAs, etc over 11%

- L-012 passes

- Fields: my district doesn't need more places to buy alcohol, we need jobs. Don't kill small business.

- Williams: 80% of economic dev is from small business. "Big business has no business driving small business out of business!"

- Duran: support grocery workers and their unions by supporting this bill.

- Liston: "consumers can't understand why they have to go to a liquor store." Give us some credit, sir. I understand perfectly.

- Priola: "there are plenty of liquor stores in CA. This is about consumers. I am more than convinced that brewers will benefit from this."

- Priola: "3.2 is 'beer is beer with training wheels'"

- Priola: will this kill jobs? Who knows? But we have to consider the c-store owners too.
- Wilson: MADD is against this bill.

- [I mentioned here to Bristol that MADD really would do away with alcohol if they could]

- Wilson: it's not a free market bill and won't be until street vendors and your neighbor can sell it.

- Wilson: it's bad for business in CO. Don't relegate small liq stores to a niche market. Some will go out of business. That's just true.

- Wilson: 50 liq stores in my district. 49 say it will hurt them really badly.

- Wilson: ALL the craft brewers are against this? Why? Because they know CO is unique and we have the best beer culture in the US.

- Wilson: I believe brewers when they say it will hurt them. They know what they're doing.

- Liston: "liq stores keep crying, "I can't, I can't". Winners wake up and say, "I can"."

- Liston: "breweries are booming. Brewers *want* grocery stores. That's where the growth is." Thanks for speaking for us, Larry.

- Kagan: "Beer is not just beer. Full strength beer is the life blood of liq stores.

- Kagan: If you support free markets, this is not your bill. It just tinkers around the edges of a highly regulated industry.

- Shafer: liq stores have a monopoly, let's have a free market. Give ppl choice, give them convenience.

- Balmer: mom&pop c-stores lost 5% of their sales to Sunday sales. Beer is beer. Why do we need to have two kinds of beer? Vote yes.

- Levy: families have invested their life savings in liq stores based on our regulations. It's not inconvenient to cross the parking lot.

- Levy: don't destroy their investment. Let them play by the rules.

- Liston is pointing at map of California. I guess to show we should be like them.

- DelGrosso: liq is ALL a liq store can sell. Gstores can sell all kinds of things. I'm a free market guy, but this just messes things up more

- DelGrosso: this redistributes wealth from local business to big-box stores. To make it better for one, we must make it worse for another.

- Ryden moves amendment L-015 - if a small business defaults on their loan b/c of this bill, it will be forgiven.

- Liston: that's not reasonable. It's irresponsible. If a liq store goes out of business it could be because of bad decision making.

- L-015 defeated 

- Ryden moves L-016 - c-stores should be able to sell produce

- Liston: that's a poison pill

- Gardner: does that include fresh limes for my Corona? Then I'm not against it. (joking)

- L-016 fails

- Duran: we all ran on platforms of creating jobs, but not just any job. (saying g-store jobs are better than liq store jobs)

- Priola: do it for the consumer.

- Priola: ppl will still go to liq stores for craft beers.

- No further discussion. Someone called for a division vote.

- Liston: my bill will not harm liq stores. It serves consumers. I thank the CLBA and craft brewers for the power they have under the dome.

- Hey, I think he's talking about me!

- Liston: when it comes to CO law, the consumer is always last.

- You all called your representatives, right? Does Liston speak for you?

- Liston: liq stores have nothing to lose from this bill. G-stores are the biggest employers in CO...

- ... They just have to add one job per store to add hundreds of jobs."

- Liston moves L-013 - moves it to a referendum for the ppl.

- Holy cow! It would put it on the ballot in 2012!!

- That was unexpected.

- Pace: let's just vote and make a decision

- Court: no way would I vote to defer this! What have been doing all day?! Are we too chicken to make a vote?

- L-013 fails (loudly)

- Division vote coming. Ppl lining up on their sides.

- Those in favor...

- Opposed are now standing...

- Hb1284 fails!!

- Yay, beer! Long live Colorado craft brewing! Thx to everyone who helped #SaveTheAles.. W00T!!!

- We killed it 46-17. We picked up an extra six votes that we didn't know about! Loved Liston's panic attack with the referendum amendment.