July 2, 2019
By Jennifer Tiedemann
Ah, summer: a time when
many Americans’ fancy turns to kicking back with a cold beer on a hot day. But
as the weather’s turned warm in New England, some Massachusetts legislators have
been trying to make this favorite summer activity a little more difficult for
Bostonians.
Pop-up beer gardens
have been growing in popularity in Boston, with several local breweries setting
up seasonal shop throughout the city. Breweries must obtain one-day liquor
licenses in order to operate a pop-up location. As Boston.com explains, “State law says that no ‘person’ can be granted more than 30
such licenses a year. But breweries and others can skirt that provision by simply
having different employees apply for the permits, so that their beer gardens
can be open regularly through the several warm-weather months.”
But Senate Bill
158, introduced earlier this year, would limit breweries to just 14 one-day
licenses per calendar year and tighten the bill language to eliminate the
ability to use multiple individuals to apply for the licenses. Capping the
issuance of licenses in such a way would effectively put an end to the pop-up
or seasonal beer garden option that many local breweries rely on—and many
Bostonians have come to love. For example, the popular Trillium Brewing
Company’s downtown Boston beer garden is operating five days a
week throughout the summer of 2019. Should Senate Bill 158 become law, that
schedule would be upended. Breweries like Trillium would have to decide if
having a beer garden is even worth it, and in many cases, the answer will
likely be no. (Indeed, if the bill is passed as written, Trillium’s director of
marketing has said that their beer garden would be “forced
to close.”)
So what’s behind the
legislation? In short, the local restaurant industry. In a statement
issued about the beer garden situation, Massachusetts State Senator and bill
co-sponsor Nick Collins explained that while the cost of beer garden licenses
is relatively low—only $75 to $150 per day—the cost of a full liquor license
for a restaurant ranges between $250,000 and $500,000. Collins wrote, “I have…heard
from restaurants that rightfully point out that they incur costs much higher
than $75 a day to maintain their licensure, and believe the playing field is
tilted.”
But this assumes that
restaurants and beer gardens are actually on the same playing field, filling
the same niche. The Massachusetts Restaurant Association (MRA) insists they
are: MRA President Bob Luz has
said that “several members of the industry, which isn’t known for its high
profit margins, have seen 25 percent dives in revenue due to the opening of
nearby beer gardens.” (Important to note: Luz actually
drafted the anti-beer garden legislation now being considered.) But brewery
owners like Rob Burns disagree: Burns, the president and co-founder of local
brewery Night Shift, says of the legislation, “We’re trying to solve a problem
of why people aren’t going to restaurants by killing beer gardens, which seems
kind of crazy to me.”
Well, this definitely
isn’t the first time we’ve heard about a disagreement like this. As
discussed on this blog a few months back, a special ruling issued in New
Jersey last year, restricted the number of events that Garden State breweries
could hold on premises. The state’s restaurant industry supported the special
ruling, pointing to the difference in cost between limited brewery licenses and
full restaurant liquor licenses.
In the same way that punishing
New Jersey’s breweries because full liquor licenses for restaurants are very
expensive is unfair, Massachusetts’ burgeoning beer gardens shouldn’t suffer
because of high liquor license costs. Brewery owners, including Night Shift’s
Burns, have expressed
openness to some sort of license reform, such as the issuance of seasonal
licenses for beer gardens rather than one-day licenses. But any reform should fairly
and equitably reduce regulatory
burdens, rather than throw new ones up at the behest of one special interest.
Jennifer Tiedemann is Deputy Director of Communications at the Goldwater
Institute.
