Miami Legal Tips Blog

64-Ounce Growlers Might Be Legal Soon

1013GrowlerAs early as 2015, the Tampa Bay Tribune reports, a movement to repeal Florida’s ban on 64-ounce growlers – refillable jugs that let consumers take home craft beer that’s available on tap – could succeed. Mitch Rubin, head of the influential Florida Beer Wholesalers Association (a trade group for Anheuser-Busch beer distributors in the state), announced that his members have supported overturning the ban for many years.

Currently, Florida allows the sale of quart- and gallon-sized growler containers, but not the more popular half-gallon jug. Idaho and Mississippi are the only two other U.S. states that also have the same ban in place.

The FBWA’s support, Rubin says, is connected to “the larger discussion of direct brewer-to-consumer sales,” which translates as sales that do not involve a middleman distributor.

Were the ban to be repealed, it would still need the signature of Governor Rick Scott, who has previously voiced support for the measure. The leader of the state House of Representatives seems to believe that the outlook is bright for that happening, saying, “I would say the environment is very good to pass a simple bill allowing the 64-ounce growler.”

So, why hasn’t that already happened? Likely because previous efforts were tied to other issues. One version of a bill would have made the 64-ounce growlers legal – but only if the bill could force craft brewers to sell their bottled or canned products to distributors, who would then sell the growlers back to the brewers to be made available in their tasting rooms. That effort went nowhere. Another proposed bill, which also failed, would have undone the legal exception that permits breweries to operate on-site testing rooms.

One event which may have helped to move things forward a bit more quickly: As Broward-Palm Beach New Times reports, “In October the Palm Beach Gardens office of Sacramento-based Pacific Legal Foundation filed a lawsuit against the state of Florida over the ban, saying that the law was bad for business.”

Supporters of the ban say the bad-for-business argument is especially true for tourists, many of whom simply can’t understand why a state that would allow them to buy a gallon of suds won’t let them buy half that much. In one container, that is.

 

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