Wyoming: Senate committee OKs alcohol law changes

Source: Wyoming Tribune Eagle

Matt Murphy

January 12th

A Senate committee decided Thursday morning to move forward with two related bills that would modify Wyoming’s liquor laws.

Senate File 13

Senate File 13 gives more guidance to Wyoming’s growing distilling industry and also makes small changes to how patrons can interact with a distillery.

One of the changes patrons would see is that distilleries would be able to offer up to three ounces worth of samples free of charge per customer per day.

Existing law limits samples to two individual samples per day, and each sample can be no more than 1.5 ounces of liquor, or a standard shot.

The change would mean that although the limit for the amount of liquor would still be the same, a customer could sample more types of liquor in smaller quantities.

The bill also would specify that a distillery must obtain its permit from the federal Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau before obtaining a state manufacturer’s license.

Further, the bill seeks to limit liquor products sold at “satellite locations” of distilleries to goods made in Wyoming.

That would mean that a distillery with a tasting room attached could only sell liquor made at its in-state facility in the tasting room.

The change would prevent a large distiller from opening a small operation in Wyoming and then bringing in much of the product it sells at the tasting room from outside the state.

Amber Pollock of Backwards Distilling in Mills said the distillery and the Wyoming Distillers Guild are in support of the bill.

The committee voted unanimously to move forward with the bill, with Sen. Cale Case, R-Lander, abstaining because he has a financial interest in an establishment with a retail liquor license.

The bill later passed the Senate’s Committee of the Whole.

Senate File 43

Meanwhile, Senate File 43 makes several changes to the state’s liquor laws.

Most are minor, like removing a provision requiring holders of a restaurant liquor license to buy a set amount of alcohol and allowing license holders to pay annual fees by check instead of only cash or a cashier’s check.

But one proposed change caused controversy among beer wholesale distributors.

A provision in the bill would have allowed alcohol retailers to buy product from a beer wholesaler that is outside of the wholesaler’s designated territory if the wholesaler responsible for the retailer’s territory was unwilling or unable to provide a certain product.

However, that drew criticism from beer wholesalers.

“There’s a lot of unintended consequences of this language,” said Laura Grott, who represents the Wyoming Beer Wholesalers Association.

Grott said beer distributors have contracts with suppliers, which designate their respective territories.

Todd Lewis, who owns Cheyenne/Laramie Distributing, said he will go out of his way to obtain a product that a retailer in his territory wants.

“To me, (the bill) is kind of just meaningless,” he said.

But Case, who didn’t vote on the bill due to his conflict of interest, said the existing system puts retailers in many parts of the state at a disadvantage when trying to obtain a product.

“This is a monopoly in law,” he said. “In rural Wyoming, you are stuck buying from one person.”

However, other senators on the committee agreed with the wholesalers, saying they felt such a provision would interfere with negotiations of private companies.

Other than Case, no other retail liquor license holders were present at the meeting.

SF 43 also contained a provision that would allow local governments to set their own times for alcohol sales, as was the case in the past.

But there was concern over the potential for creating 24/7 alcohol sales hours, as well as patrons driving drunk from one jurisdiction to another to have another drink.

“We would have a situation . where we would have folks driving from one community that closes at 2 (a.m.) . to one that closes at 4 (a.m.),” said Byron Oedekoven of the Wyoming Association of Sheriffs and Chiefs of Police.

Although the committee recommended approval of SF 43, both the provision dealing with wholesalers and the provision giving local governments control of liquor times were removed.

Other bills

Another bill the committee discussed, Senate File 45, would change rules for how alcohol is dispensed by a license holder.

Among the provisions is that restaurants would no longer need to physically separate the bar from the rest of the restaurant with a partition or similar structure.

It would also mean patrons could order drinks on tablets provided at some chain restaurants.

That proposed law will be discussed further Tuesday.

A fourth bill, Senate File 14, deals with parked liquor licenses and was not formally introduced in time for the meeting.