Page 8 - Beverage MasterAug Sept 2020_Rev

Legal & Marketing

Maine require mixed drinks to accompany a food words, one cannot set up a “food truck” type of
order and Maine and Virginia have limitations on service for alcoholic beverages.
the amount of alcohol in the to-go container.
The majority of states also require that the
Curbside Pickup delivery be made directly to a residence or other
building. North Carolina, on the other hand allows
In order to keep patrons from congregating inside breweries and wineries to deliver within 50 miles of
the tasting room to pick up beer, some states have the licensed premises and to make deliveries out-
allowed curbside pickup, where the customer side a home to any place the customer requests,
orders the product online or over the telephone except to other licensed premises.
and drives to the licensee’s parking lot. The licens-
ee then brings the order out to the customer’s car, In Maine, New Hampshire, and New York, the
often putting the order in the trunk so there is no delivery must accompany a food order, though, to
direct contact between employee and customer. borrow a phrase from the movie “Pirates of the
At least Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, Hawaii, Kansas, Caribbean,” some may be treating that require-
Maine, Maryland, Missouri, Montana, Nevada, ment “more as a guideline than an actual rule.”
New Jersey, Oregon, South Carolina, Vermont, and Hawaii has four individual county liquor commis-
Virginia allow curbside pickup. Tennessee only sions and liquor control departments. Three of the
allows curbside pickup for beer and wine, not spir- counties have allowed brewpubs to deliver beer
its. But, New Mexico expressly forbids it because along with a food order, the fourth has not, as of
all sales must be made on the licensed premises, this writing.
which does not include the parking lot.
Maryland is not only allowing manufacturers to
Delivery deliver their own products directly to consumers,
but also products from other manufacturers, who
Even before the COVID-19 pandemic, Ohio, the may not have the resources for home delivery. At
District of Columbia, and Missouri allowed man- least two breweries in another Northeastern state
ufacturers to deliver beer, wine, and spirits to have teamed up to share their delivery resources,
consumer’s homes. Since the outbreak, many though it is unclear whether there is any official
other states have followed suit, at least on a tem- or unofficial approval in that state. In Ohio, if a
porary basis, including Arizona, Arkansas, Colorado, manufacturer also has an “A-1-A” liquor permit,
Idaho (beer and wine only), Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, it may sell and deliver other brands of beer, wine,
Michigan, Montana, Nebraska, New Jersey (beer spirits, and mixed drinks (though mixed drinks must
and wine only), Oregon, Vermont, Virginia, and accompany a food order).
Washington. In Oklahoma, the Alcoholic Beverage
Laws Enforcement Commission was allowing brew- Some states have also begun to allow breweries,
eries and wineries to do home delivery in April/May wineries and distilleries to ship their products to
2020, but the legislature stepped in and gave that consumers within their own state using UPS or
right only to retailers, not manufacturers. Most Federal Express (not the U.S. Postal Service). These
states that allow home delivery require that the include at least Vermont, Maryland, New York, and
delivery be made by an employee of the licensee, North Carolina.
not by a third party service. Idaho, Illinois, and
New York, however do allow third party services, Other Accommodations
though in Illinois, mixed drinks can only be deliv-
ered by third party from licensed retailers, not from When the COVID-19 outbreak began to spread in
distilleries. the United States and hand sanitizer quickly went
out of stock in retail outlets, many distilleries and
Most states also require that payment be made breweries sprang into action. Licensing commis-
in advance either over the phone or online. sions and legislatures scrambled to provide neces-
California, however, is allowing payment, even sary approvals for these companies to pivot their
in cash, to be made at the point of delivery, but manufacturing activities. This created a valuable
will not permit a “mobile sales apparatus” to sell revenue stream while tasting rooms were closed
and deliver in real time in a public space. In other and provided a service to communities in need of

6 August - September 2020 BEVERAGE MASTER

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