Oh crap -- S.C. alcohol law gets screwed up

Eva Moore, writing in the Free Times of Columbia:

Lawmakers are scrambling to figure out how a state law passed this year ended up barring businesses and individuals from serving beer and wine at special events.


Because of that law, starting in January, the Department of Revenue will only grant special-event permits to serve beer and wine to nonprofit organizations and political parties. They will stop issuing permits to businesses and individuals — promoters, caterers and other event organizers, for example — who must obtain licenses every time they want to serve beer and wine in a location without a permanent beer and wine license.


“Somebody screwed up,” says Tom Sponseller, head of the South Carolina Hospitality Association.


According to Rep. Mike Pitts (R-Laurens), the bill’s sole sponsor, the law was just supposed to make it easier for nonprofits that frequently hold events to apply for multiple licenses at once.

Read the entire article here.

Tomorrow: Downtown Sumter Microbrew Festival

Get info here and also here.

Wine & beer tasting in Pawleys Island

Event: Wine and Beer tasting

Start Time: Thursday, October 15 at 5:00pm

End Time: Thursday, October 15 at 7:00pm

Where: Pawleys Wine & Spirits, 10135 Ocean Hwy, Pawleys Island, SC

Do you like FireFly Sweet Tea Vodka?

June is National Iced Tea Month, so I'm writing an article on FireFly Sweet Tea Vodka for the Weekly Surge.

If you're in the restaurant business and like FireFly Sweet Tea Vodka, let me know! Click the "comments" link below.

I need a caption for today's nap time; make your suggestion by posting a comment

Westmalle Trappist Ales

Westmalle Trappist Ales from Belgium are not everyday beers in the U.S.

But every beer drinker ought to try them.

Last night I had a glass of Westmalle Tripel and a glass of Westmalle Dubbel, as part of my continuing celebration of the new laws in South Carolina that allow higher alcohol levels in beer.

Both are beers that fill the mouth -- medium-to-heavy bodies and sweet maltiness.

Be careful, though. The easy-to-drink, yummy character of these two can catch up with folks who aren't used to drinking Belgian imports. The Dubbel is 7 percent alcohol by volume, and the Tripel is 9.5 percent.

Uh, beer bill passed... last week

I got busy and pre-occupied last week, and thus failed to post the good news: Governor Mark Sanford signed the bill allowing the commercial sale of beer in South Carolina to be 14 percent alcohol by weight, or 17.5 percent alcohol by volume. Here's some info from Pop the Cap South Carolina: http://ptcsc.wordpress.com/2007/05/02/south-carolina-has-popped-its-cap/ .

Meanwhile, in this coming Thursday's edition of The Weekly Surge, I'll have some comments from Myrtle Beach commercial brewers.

Beer bill passes in S.C. House

House Bill 3218 has passed. Now Gov. Mark Sanford can sign it, and if he does, the law will go into effect immediately. This would mean that South Carolina retailers, wholesalers, bars, restaurants, and microbreweries could finally begin to sell beers that exceed 5 percent alcohol by weight (6 percent by volume). The new limit for beer would be 14 percent alcohol by weight.
Check out the Pop the Cap South Carolina blog for more information and a link to the history of HB3218:
http://ptcsc.wordpress.com/

This could be the day for more beer choices in S.C.

S.C. Senate amendments added to House Bill 3218 will be debated today on the House floor.
If the debate concludes, a vote could come today.
HB 3218 would allow South Carolina (retailers, wholesalers, bars, etc.) to sell beer with alcohol-by-volume percentages of greater than 5 percent, thus allowing many fine imports, craft beers, and microbrews into the state.
Georgia and North Carolina allow beers with higher percentages of alcohol. I recently made about 40 minutes north of Myrtle Beach to the Piggly Wiggly grocery store in Sunset Beach, N.C. Some of the beauties I found there included:
Dogfish 90 Minute IPA
Three Philosophers
Duvel (in the larger, corked bottle and in a four-pack of bottles)
Chimay: red cap, blue cap, and white cap
What glories await us if our state representatives will just pass the bill.
For updates throughout the day, keep any eye on this blog from Pop the Cap-South Carolina:
http://ptcsc.wordpress.com .
-Colin Burch

Update No. 2: Clarification on beer bills

I received a return call from another staffer in the office of S.C. Rep. Jim Harrion (R-Richland), and following that conversation, I have to correct the date of the debate on House Bill 3624.

I can now also shed more light on the different roles that are being played by House Bill 3218 and House Bill 3624, both of which would allow, in South Carolina, the sale of beer with as much as 14 percent alcohol by weight.

House Bill 3624 might be debated Thursday (April 19), but it is a "back-up" bill in the event that HB 3218 doesn't pass, according to Heather Smith in Harrison's office.

House Bill 3218 is up for debate Wednesday (April 18), as previously reported. It has already been through the House Judiciary Committee and the Senate, so it's ready for debate and vote in front of the full House.

If HB 3218 were to be voted down, then HB 3624 would head to the Senate, Smith said. The Senate would give its approval, disapproval, or amendments, and then it would return to the House.

While both bills would allow higher alcohol content in beers, HB 3218 has additional language. It also addresses something relating to import and distribution of foreign beer, and that part of the bill was authored in the House Labor Committee. The person I need to talk to in the labor committee -- so I can understand what the dense language says -- will not be available until Monday.

HB 3218 originally dealt only with the import and distribution issue. The alcohol content language was added during its trip to the Senate.

-Colin Burch

Update on beer bill, or bills

A staffer in the office of S.C. Rep. Jim Harrison (R-Richland) has helped clear up the beer-bill procedures.

The bill would allow, in South Carolina, the sale of beer with as much as 14 percent alcohol by weight. Currently the law limits commercially produced and sold beer to 5 percent.

For starters, there are two bills in the S.C. House that argue for the increase, and both will be debated next week before the full House. Both bills are officially out of committee, the staffer told me.

House Bill 3218, which originally only addressed another matter related to importing beer, picked up the alcohol-increase language while it was getting a look-over from the S.C. Senate (folks in the Senate added more to the bill). It has returned to the House for debate. That debate will be held Wednesday (April 18), and a vote could follow.

House Bill 3624 was the original House bill; it addressed only the alcohol-increase in beers. It will be debated, and possibly put up for a vote, this Tuesday (April 17).

The two bills will most likely, eventually, be wedded into a single bill.

Read House Bill 3218 here: http://www.scstatehouse.net/sess117_2007-2008/bills/3218.htm

Read House Bill 3624 here: http://www.scstatehouse.net/sess117_2007-2008/bills/3624.htm

-Colin Burch

Apparently committee vote on beer bill delayed

In the S.C. General Assembly, the House Judiciary Committee was supposed to vote Tuesday on whether to send House Bill 3218 to the floor for a full-House vote. The bill would allow South Carolinians to buy, and retailers and wholesalers to sell, beers that exceed the current limit of 5-percent alcohol by weight.

Apparently, this vote has been delayed. I haven't received a return phone call from the Judiciary chairman's office for the official explanation, but I have two decent pieces of evidence that suggest the vote was delayed.

1. The State House Web page devoted to House Bill 3218 doesn't list any activity taken on the bill yesterday (Tuesday). The page includes a "History of Legislative Action" which tracks each procedure that the bill goes through. The line for today, April 11, reads, "Debate ajourned on Senate amendments until Wednesday, April 18, 2007." So one could guess that, possibly, the Senate has offered some tweaks to House Bill 3218, so the vote is delayed perhaps because the committee members need to give some thought to those tweaks. Read the House Bill 3218 page at http://www.scstatehouse.net/sess117_2007-2008/bills/3218.htm .

2. A group called Pop the Top South Carolina has been monitoring the bill's progress in the House and the Senate, and their blog post from today says essentially the same thing I have above. You can read their post here: http://ptcsc.wordpress.com/2007/04/11/41107/ .

I'll post updates as I get more info.

-Colin Burch

Starbucks' S.C. roasting facility: some background details

First the news, and then the background that didn't make the news:
"Starbucks and [South Carolina] state officials on Monday announced the global coffee purveyor has plans to build a roasting and distribution plant in St. Matthews, about 15 miles from the state capital. Coffee beans would be sent to the 150,000-square-foot plant, where they'd be roasted and packaged for shipment to the region's 2,200 Starbucks stores and other coffee sellers." -- The Associated Press (Read the rest of the story here: http://www.charlotteobserver.com/122/story/79993.html )
Some background details I couldn't find on regional news Web sites, or in national reports:
1. St. Matthews wasn't the only Southern city that Starbucks was seriously considering. Murfreesboro, Tenn., was a finalist for the roasting facility, according to the Murfreesboro Post (http://www.murfreesboropost.com/news.php?viewStory=3579).
2. The St. Matthews roasting facility will be in exclusive company. The other Starbucks roasting facilities, and the years they opened, are:
New facility built at home base, Seattle, 1990
Kent, Washington, 1993
York, Pennsylvania, 1995
Carson Valley, Nevada, 2003
Amsterdam, The Netherlands, 2003
(http://www.starbucks.com/aboutus/Company_Timeline_Feb06.pdf)
-Colin Burch

New bill might allow S.C. to sell beer with higher alcohol content

South Carolina law could allow higher-alcohol content in commercially sold beer by this June.

The possibility began again (after being tabled last session) with House Bill 3624, which suggested a change in the current law that would allow beer with as much as 14 percent alcohol by weight. That law was attached to House Bill 3218, which contains some dense language about imported beer and suppliers (I cannot understand it).

Currently the law states that beer cannot exceed 5 percent alcohol. Oddly enough, as I write this, I'm drinking Riggwelter Ale, an import from England that claims 5.7 percent alcohol, and I bought this beautiful stuff locally.

Here's House Bill 3218:
http://www.scstatehouse.net/sess117_2007-2008/bills/3218.htm

The full House Judiciary Committee will vote on the bill on April 10, and the woman I spoke to said it's pretty much a done deal that it will get out on the floor for the entire House to vote on it.

If the Senate and the House bills link up OK and the final bill passes, then the law could become effective upon the Governor's signature, which would happen in early June.

This page will give you the local S.C. House and S.C. Senate folks, so you can contact them with your opinion on these bills:
http://specialsections.myrtlebeachonline.com/SS/Page.aspx?secid=22672&pagenum=116&facing=false

North Carolina and Georgia already allow higher alcohol content. Last night, I was drinking some gorgeous Belgian Trappist ales that a friend bought while in Atlanta, and the alcohol content ranged from 7 percent to 10.5 percent.

-Colin Burch