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Distributors and Retailers trying to shut down Florida tap rooms

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  • Distributors and Retailers trying to shut down Florida tap rooms

    Hey Pro Brewers,
    Bringing this to everyones attention. Last year Florida breweries along with the Florida Brewers Guild fought hard against Distributors lobby groups, we were trying to get 64 oz growlers legalized. Here in Florida we can fill 32's and 128's but half gallons are not a legal package size. Well we fought hard but at the end of the day we were lucky to keep our current legal structure to retail from our own tap rooms. Needless to say we didn't get the 64oz growlers. At the beginning of this years legislative session the main opposition to us last year (Florida Beer Wholesalers Association, representing the AB houses) announced that they would support a "clean" growler bill, we were all pleasently surprised. The feeling was short lived as last week two retailers groups along with FBWA and the Beer Industry of Florida (Miller houses) filed suit against the Florida Department of Business and Professional Regulation. Find all the detail here: http://floridabrewersguild.org/2015/...-under-attack/ essentially they are going the legal route to try to do what they couldn't accomplish last year in the legislative session. That is to either close down our tap rooms or force us to sell all our beer to them before buying it back at a higher price to simply be allowed to then sell it in our tap rooms (I know, crazy right?) Even crazier is last year they even put in the proposed legislation that we be ALLOWED to simply report the beer we want to sell in our tap rooms, then simply exchange invoices and write them a check for the beer we made and for OUR convenience they wouldn't even be required to pick it up and then re deliver it back to us, gee thanks guys! It's obvious that we are dealing with plain old greed here, its disgusting and downright wrong. I ask you all to pass along this information so as to help us raise awareness. Also the Florida Brewers Guild is currently running a crowd funding campaign to raise money to mount a legal defense to protect our tap rooms. If any of you feel inspired to help financially, feel free to visit this link to the crowd funding site: https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/s...raft-breweries

    Thanks to all of you!
    Luch Scremin
    Engine 15 Brewing Co.
    luch at engine15 dot com
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