Let me explain myself. I am what Fox News would call a liberal heathen. But when it comes to business, especially the craft beer business, I am much more laissez faire Libertarian minus the strange 4 letter name. I don’t agree with the over oversight that government (looking at you City of Los Angeles) imposes on breweries. (Within reason of course)
Which is why I have been following House Bill 1217 in Colorado with interest and trying to pinpoint if I think it works. In a nutshell, the bill signed by Wynkoop Brewery past and current governer of the state, John Hickenlooper puts the decision of approving a brewery taproom in the sole hands of state regulators. While still giving local government a voice but not a veto sized one. Gaining neighborhood resident signatures would also be off the to-do list for a brewery.
As long as the regulators are familiar with the world of craft beer, I am down with this. I assume that Colorado has such people in that office. The largest stumbling blocks that I have seen here in SoCal has been the simple lack of beer knowledge that community residents have and that their elected officials have. Finding a council member who “gets it” is rare, though incrementally growing.
The problem, as I see it, is that the rules and regulations expect bad actors. Remember in grade school when the whole class was punished with a rule because of one bad kid? That is what it seems like navigating through the system. I would think it would be easier and more cost efficient to have less paperwork upfront and more supervision during operation. Assume that a brewery will be an asset and then, if it doesn’t live up to it, shut them down until they behave. If that doesn’t work, then we can go back to the way we do it now and if anyone complained, they would complain to the breweries that f…ed it up for the rest of us.
Maybe if the Colorado law works, something to that effect could be put into place in California.