When launching an alcohol beverage business, it is crucial to consider your exit strategy from the start. Below are key questions designed to guide founders through preparing their business for a future investment or acquisition:           1.Who Are Your Potential Buyers or Investors? Understanding the restrictions on potential buyers or investors is central to an effective exit strategy and highlights the complexity of alcohol industry investments. The alcohol industry's regulatory environment limits who can invest in different businesses within the industry. Because ..read more

Reported by Zachary Reeves, John Hinman, and the Hinman & Carmichael LLP team. The California legislature adopted, and the Governor approved, several changes to the state’s alcohol laws for 2024, with many amendments already effective.  Below is our summary of the new laws that producers, wholesalers, and retailers of beer, wine, and spirits should know are now binding on them, along with our editorial comments on what the laws mean to our clients. A. SB 1013 and SB 353 [CA Bus. & Prof. Code § 23661.3, CA Public Resources Code §§ 14500, et seq.] – The Bottle Bill Amendments Hinman ..read more

After 9 long years of technological advancement in the internet age, TTB quietly released Industry Circular: 2022-2, updating its Industry Circular: 2013-01 on alcohol social media last week. As a longtime legal advisor on compliant alcohol marketing, I was very curious what direction TTB would go, since so much has changed in this space since 2013, when TTB had to explain to industry members that social media was not just a conversation among friends but was actually regulated advertising. In this post, I will remind readers what the old policy said, explain what has changed in the new policy ..read more

I had the pleasure of being invited to speak on alcohol trade practices by Carrie Bonnington and Marc Sorini at the CLE International Beer Wine & Spirits Conference in Phoenix last week, which had some really great presentations on the industry. I shared the trade practices panel with Alva Mather and for anyone who missed it, here is a quick summary of the latest on trade practices:  1. Offers in Compromise & Ongoing Investigations  TTB enforcement has been active in recent years, although offers in compromise (industry member settlements of violations by paying fines) have ..read more

On Thursday, President Biden announced that he will be pardoning all past offenses of simple possession of marijuana by citizens and legal residents in violation of the Controlled Substances Act. He stated that these offenses have affected “thousands” of people (the Sentencing Commission’s latest data is from 2008-2013 and it is in the low thousands). Most cannabis possession cases are prosecuted under state law, so in his announcement, President Biden also encouraged state governors to follow his lead with regard to state offenses (which leaves less than half of the states that have not alrea ..read more

The Uniform Law Commission Has Made Lives Easier for All of Us.  By Robert M. Tobiassen *    The Uniform Law Commission was founded in 1892 to formulate uniform and model laws for the States to consider adopting to ensure consistency in commerce, child custody rules, easement relocations, and accuracy of criminal records, among others, between the States. Over 300 model and uniform acts have been completed and presented to the various states as recommendations and best practices.  As nationwide commerce grew so did the number of uniform and model acts.  The ULC wo ..read more

Introduction by John Hinman: Once again our good friend Rob Tobiassen, the former Chief Counsel of the TTB and the President of NABI, has analyzed the latest enforcement missive from the TTB. TTB Industry Circular 2022-1 (released on Friday March 4, 2022). The TTB Circular caused those of us involved in product distribution to either laugh out loud, or turn pale, at what the TTB was proposing as violating the FAA Act.  The upshot of 2022-1 was the TTB is considering enforcing the “consignment sales” prohibitions in the regulations against “trade buyers” – a defined term that includes both ..read more

To no one’s surprise, the deeper the industry (and the ABC itself) digs into the upcoming RBS program requirements, definitions, and consequences, the more detailed the nuances of the program become.  The California alcoholic beverage industry is more than just waiters and waitresses – the service of alcohol cuts across every facet of California business and every type of alcoholic beverage license issued by the ABC (currently 75 discrete license types, each with different privileges and many combined with other license types for special purposes). This is the reason our original estimate ..read more

If you have an on-sale liquor license in California, knowing whether or what alcohol you can sell “to-go” is even more confusing now than it was before Covid. During the pandemic, the California ABC relaxed rules and allowed restaurants and bars to exercise privileges – like sell sealed bottles to-go and pre-mixed cocktails or glasses of wine to-go - that weren’t allowed before. Then, as of January 1, 2022, some allowances were taken away, while others were made permanent (by way of new laws). So as an ABC-licensed California restaurant or bar, what can you do, and what can’t you do, now? F ..read more

IMPORTANT NOTICE TO ANYONE IN CALIFORNIA SERVING ALCOHOL: YOU MUST BE CERTIFIED IN THE ABC’S NEW RESPONSIBLE BEVERAGE SERVER TRAINING PROGRAM BY JULY 1, 2022 KEY FACTS: AB 1221 was passed into law in 2017 mandating every person in California who serves alcohol must take and pass a mandatory training course – “The Responsible Beverage Service Act of 2017” (“RBS”).  The ABC staff developed a detailed curriculum and detailed rules regarding the RBS training program.  This Blog summarizes the key facts and requirements to help all servers (and licensee owners) be compliant. NO EMPLOYER ..read more