Sen. Peter Micciche, R-Soldotna, is expected to be the key figure this year as long-awaited reforms to Alaska\u2019s alcohol laws reach the Legislature.<\/p>\n
Since 2012, members of the Alaska Alcoholic Beverage Control Board and stakeholders from across Alaska have been redrafting Title 4, the chapter of state statute that regulates \u201cthe manufacture, barter, possession, and sale of alcoholic beverages in the state.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve been working on \u2026 I don\u2019t want to say revising so much as bringing Title 4 into the new millennium,\u201d said Bob Klein, chairman of the ABC board.<\/p>\n
Much of Title 4 hasn\u2019t been updated since 1980, and during that time, the alcohol industry has changed dramatically. When Alaskan Brewing opened for business on Dec. 26, 1986, it was the first successful craft brewery in modern Alaska history. Now, there are more than 35 across the state.<\/p>\n
They\u2019ve been joined by craft distilleries and a surge in the number of restaurants and seasonal businesses seeking alcohol licenses. The number of liquor-license applicants rose 20 percent in the past year alone, said Cynthia Franklin, director of the Alaska Alcohol and Marijuana Control office.<\/p>\n
Franklin said she believes at least part of that surge is coming from businesses seeking to get \u201cpublic convenience\u201d licenses before they\u2019re eliminated.<\/p>\n
Micciche introduced Senate Bill 99 in 2014 to implement the Title 4 revisions, but that bill didn\u2019t move from the Labor and Commerce committee to which it was referred. A companion version, House Bill 185, was submitted by Rep. Bob Herron, D-Bethel, but that also didn\u2019t move from its committee of first referral.<\/p>\n
In 2015, Micciche stripped some elements from SB 99 and put them into the new Senate Bill 165. That bill passed both houses of the Legislature and was signed into law by the governor. SB 165 reduced underage drinking penalties so they no longer result in the loss of a driver\u2019s license, and fines can be reduced through Youth Court or taking alcohol education classes.<\/p>\n
SB 165, while incorporating some of the recommendations of the commmittee convened to review Title 4, left most of the particularly contentious items alone.<\/p>\n
Among the committee\u2019s recommendations:<\/p>\n
\u2022 Increase alcohol license fees (they haven\u2019t risen since 1980);<\/p>\n
\u2022 Consolidate licenses (get rid of brewpub and bottling works licenses) and to compensate, create add-on sampling ability to brewery and distillery licenses;<\/p>\n
\u2022 Let breweries and distilleries hold a restaurant license as well;<\/p>\n
\u2022 Allow growler-filling stations at liquor stores to give out samples;<\/p>\n
\u2022 Increase penalties for liquor license-holders who violate the law;<\/p>\n
\u2022 Change the makeup of the ABC board; <\/p>\n
\u2022 Increase efforts to stop bootlegging.<\/p>\n
\u201cSen. Micciche\u2019s pretty determined to get as much of that through as possible,\u201d said Cynthia Franklin, director of the Alaska Alcohol and Marijuana Control Office.<\/p>\n
Franklin and Klein each said the work of the Title 4 review committee is done, and the issue is now in the hands of the Legislature.<\/p>\n
\u201cAll the hurdles have been cleared now, and it\u2019s mostly a case of just doing the legal mumbo-jumbo,\u201d Klein said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Sen. Peter Micciche, R-Soldotna, is expected to be the key figure this year as long-awaited reforms to Alaska\u2019s alcohol laws reach the Legislature. Since 2012, members of the Alaska Alcoholic Beverage Control Board and stakeholders from across Alaska have been redrafting Title 4, the chapter of state statute that regulates \u201cthe manufacture, barter, possession, and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":426,"featured_media":32810,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_stopmodifiedupdate":false,"_modified_date":"","wds_primary_category":4,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[34,230],"yst_prominent_words":[],"class_list":["post-32809","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-alaska-legislature","tag-state-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32809","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/426"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=32809"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32809\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/32810"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=32809"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=32809"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=32809"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=32809"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}