Maryland’s Republican governor let a controversial new microbrewery law go into effect recently without his signature and is urging the Democrat-dominated General Assembly to craft a more business-friendly bill next year.
Mr. Hogan let House Bill 1283 take effect but explained his reservations in a letter to House Speaker Michael Busch, the Washington Business Journal said Wednesday.
The new law “contains several troubling provisions, which will more than likely prove detrimental to Maryland’s burgeoning craft beer industry — hampering the economic growth, job creation and tax revenue it produces,” Mr. Hogan said in his May 26 letter, the Washington Business Journal said.
“The legislation punishes new entrants into the market through shorter tap room hours,” Mr. Hogan added. “Maryland’s craft brewing industry encompasses manufacturing, agriculture, tourism and entertainment — all of which are vital elements of our state’s economy.”
Another provision of the law, while boosting the taproom barrel limit for brew pubs from 500 to 2,000 per year, is still far short of the taproom limit of neighboring jurisdictions.
According to the Brewers Association website, there is no barrel limit in either Washington, D.C. or Pennsylvania brewery pubs, while West Virginia caps brew pubs at 25,000 barrels per years. Meanwhile, licensing fees in Virginia and Delaware vary for brewpubs on the basis of barrel volume, with the Old Dominion placing a 15,000-barrel cap only on breweries located on farms.
The first-term Republican closed his letter saying he didn’t veto the bill in part to permit a new Baltimore-area brewery and tasting facility by Diageo — the makers of Guinness — to go forward as planned, but that he hopes legislators can soon “lift the legislative impediments to Maryland’s craft brewers.”
Besides the support of craft-brewery lobby groups, Mr. Hogan enjoys support on the other side of the political aisle in the state’s chief tax collector, a former longtime state legislator.
“Maryland Comptroller Peter Franchot was vocal during the General Assembly in opposition of the limitations and started the Reform on Tap task force to create new brewery law recommendations for the next General Assembly,” the Business Journal explained. “The task force is made up of 40 members from brewers, politicians, retailers and wholesalers.”
A resident of Montgomery County who served 20 years as a state delegate before serving as comptroller, Mr. Franchot has also called for the dismantling of that jurisdiction’s governmental monopoly on hard liquor.
• Ken Shepherd can be reached at kshepherd@washingtontimes.com.
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