Legislative Session Ends, For Now

The legislature recessed their regular session last week although they could be back as soon as July 16^th to take up unfinished business. It was a good year for the association. In addition to the ABC Law recodification bill discussed above, other legislative victories included:

· Passing a bill to require all food service establishments to have a trained food handler on staff (not on the premises). The bill exempts businesses licensed to section 64-a of the alcoholic beverage control law (bars) and allows for training to be conducted online in order to reduce the cost and make the training more available;

· Defeating legislation to ban trans fats in all food service establishments and requiring the posting of nutritional information on all menus and menu boards;

· Passing a bill that requires state agencies enacting regulations to publish guidelines for small business to explain the actions necessary to comply;

· Passing legislation that directs state agencies to develop policies authorizing the installment payment of fees and civil penalties;

· Thwarting efforts to expand the bottle deposit law;

· Passing a bill to require the use of independent hearing officers for disciplinary hearings; and

· Defeating an attempt to expand the ignition interlock program to all first time drunk driving offenders.

Of course we were not victorious on all fronts. Over our objections your liquor wholesalers passed legislation to change your liquor credit period again. Under the current law you have a 33 – 39 day period (depending upon delivery date) to pay your liquor bills. The bill that passed alters the day of the week payments are considered delinquent reducing your payment period to a 31 – 36 day period. Although there is a financial impact to this change, the more bothersome aspect is that your liquor wholesalers once again are changing the credit terms to suit their interests with little regard for your concerns.