This is from The Garden State Craft Brewer’s Guild. I’m urging all of you to do this. We need more craft beer in New Jersey!
Please click here to find out who your local legislators are. You can search by town and then go to your legislators’ sites. There you can send an email or find the address to send a letter in support of small New Jersey breweries.
We’ve prepared a sample letter for you to adapt, if you’re not sure what to say.
What These Bills Will Do
Here is an overview of what we are trying to accomplish. Many of these changes are privileges that New Jersey’s small wineries already have, which has helped them greatly expand the quality and diversity of New Jersey wines.
- Removing the arbitrary cap (2 brew pubs) on the amount of brewpubs a company can open in the state. Taking away this cap means brew pub businesses wishing to expand and create jobs in the state could without any unnecessary restrictions;
- Allow small breweries to sell beer directly to consumers from their brewery locations; NJ wineries already have this privilege.
- Allow small brewers to sell their product at 10 locations across the state directly to consumers. New Jersey wineries have this privilege already, bringing their product directly to consumers without any harmful impact on other wine or alcohol interests;
- Allow small breweries and brew pubs to offer samples to consumers both at their brewery or offsite at such things as charity events and festivals;
- Allow brew pubs to sell their beer at other bars and restaurants which they own which do not brew beer onsite, yet have a retail consumption license;
- Allowing brew pubs sell their beer off premise in the same manner as small breweries through the wholesale distribution chain. This would allow consumers to buy their favorite brew pub beer at other locations in the State;
- Increase the amount of craft beer both New Jersey’s small breweries and brew pubs could produce annually.
View the actual bills on the New Jersey Legislature website. On the right hand side, type in S-2870 or A-3969 in the search box.
Lousy way to lobby. The letter is poorly written and contains grammatical errors. No wonder this industry is "struggling" in our state! Who's running this show?
its not a grammar class….its just trying to get a point across to our legislators
The point I got from it is that the craft brew lobby is unprofessional and perhaps illiterate — just as your name might indicate. The 2nd point is that there are no facts and figures provided…pass this bill because we like beer…just doesn't cut it. How many jobs will it create? How much new revenue in taxes? Will we attract new breweries to the state, etc. Those are points that influence and move legislators to action.