Wine industry, Teamsters and wholesalers lobbied to block permanent rules
For six years, Californians have been able to mix craft cocktails at home using alcohol delivered to their doorstep. That arrangement is now at its end: distillery deliveries will stop unless lawmakers intervene by the end of this month, and the Associated Press reports that intervention is unlikely.
According to the Associated Press, the opposition comes from three well-funded corners of the alcohol trade: California’s wine industry, Teamsters union truck drivers, and corporate alcohol wholesalers and distributors.
Those influential, well-funded groups, the Associated Press reported, lobbied the Legislature behind closed doors this year to block legislation that would have made permanent the pandemic-era rules that allowed craft distillers to ship spirits directly to their customers.
The rules trace to the pandemic lockdowns. During those lockdowns, Gov. Gavin Newsom issued an executive order allowing craft distillers to ship spirits to customers’ homes.
In the years since, lawmakers passed temporary laws that kept the shipping channel open. State rules define craft distillers as those that produce up to 150,000 gallons a year.
The latest extension expires Dec. 31. Unless the Legislature acts before the end of this month, the direct-to-customer shipping that began as a pandemic emergency measure will come to an end.
The next few weeks will determine whether Californians can keep ordering spirits to their doorsteps — a service that arrived with an executive order and has been renewed by temporary laws ever since.