I'll Drink to AB 1014

John Seiler:

After a six-month assault on Californians’ pocketbooks and liberties, the Legislature finally did something right: It passed AB 1014, which allows small beer makers to open tasting rooms. Reported SignOnSanDiego:

Current law bars breweries from opening a tasting room unless the facility meets all of the more-stringent health and safety codes that govern restaurants and food production facilities. Those include cleaning equipment, certain types of flooring, sinks, paint, plumbing and other measures.

If signed into law, the measure would change that so that craft beer makers are exempt as long as food is not served. That also will put breweries on an even keel with wineries, which have enjoyed an exemption from restaurant-style rules since 1985.

All of our current alcohol regulations stem from Prohibition, the 1920-32 ban on alcohol sales imposed by the 18th Amendment. It was repealed by the 21st Amendment.

According to the accounts at the time by fabled Baltimore journalist H.L. Mencken (pictured above taking his first legal drink after Prohibition ended), the 1920 Democratic Convention in San Francisco hardly observed Prohibition at all. Mencken was impressed by the laid-back, easy attitude of Californians in this and other matters.

How times have changed. California now is the most politically correct, controlled, law-choked state in the Union.

AB 1014 is but a small step in the right direction, albeit a welcome and tasty one.

Let’s hope Gov. Jerry Brown signs the bill into law.

July 15, 2011