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Gourmet Beer Bill Passes Alabama House
Yesterday the Alabama House of Representatives passed HB196 the “Gourmet Beer Bill” by a 48-42 vote with 2 members absent and 13 voting “present.” You can view the roll of votes here. The bill reforms Alabama’s draconian beer laws that are left over from Prohibition and shared by less than four other states. Alabama’s law limits beer to 6% alcohol by volume content and container sizes to no larger than one American pint (16 oz). This excludes Alabamians from enjoying many of the world’s best beers that often contain more than 6% ABV or are sometimes only available in 22 oz bottles. There are no such restrictions on hard liquor, which is readily available at 80%+ ABV in every liquor store. You can read more about Alabama’s peculiar restrictions on beer here. After passing the House the bill will now be assigned to committee in the Senate and hopefully brought up for a vote before the end of the legislative session.
My local representative, Butch Taylor, voted for the bill in the House and my senator, Parker Griffith, has expressed to me his intent to support the bill in the Senate. Senator Griffith is the sponsor of the same bill introduced in the Senate, SB116. How did your local representative vote? You can find your legislators by entering your zip code on the left side of this page. Whether you support or oppose the bill make your wishes known to your elected officials. I contacted mine and was pleasantly surprised at the quick and personal replies.
[edited to add]: I just found out that the bill passed the BIR vote by only one vote! Now I shall answer your obvious question: WTF is a BIR vote? BIR stands for “Budget Isolation Resolution.” It was designed so that the legislature would always pass Alabama’s budget as the first order of business for the session, since that is its primary duty. Anything that was to be put to a vote before the budget had to be declared “important enough to be considered before the budget” by clearing a BIR vote which requires a 3/5 majority. In present practice the budget is always passed last and the party opposed to a bill perverts uses the BIR to its advantage by essentially requiring that a bill have a 3/5 majority in order to be brought to the floor for a vote, where passing requires only a simple majority. A similar bill to the Gourmet Beer Bill failed the BIR vote two years ago. Last year Alabama’s legislature fought amongst itself about internal rules instead of passing legislation…then a legislator punched someone during the middle of the session. Don’t you love our public servants?
Those Southern Beer laws are interesting. When I moved to the South, although we lived in New Orleans, the city with the most liberal liquor laws in the country. I was amazed on a visit to Mississippi and find out how difficult it was to buy wine and beer. In most counties you can only get it in a “package” store and in some not at all on Sunday. I don’t drink, but I do like non alcoholic beer. I went to a market on a Sunday to by O’douls and the checker refused to sell it to me. I pointed out it was non alcoholic and she said it was still beer. Being the smart ass that I can be I went an got some root beer. I put them side by side and said “These are both beers and both non alcholic.” She still would not sell it to me. Now New Orleans was the other extreme. All alcohol all the time. They even sold alcohol at my son’s youth soccer and baseball game. The soccer coach used to drink a beer during parctice. At any rate, it is so good to be back in California.