Lancaster city council votes to restrict single-bottle alcohol sales, alarming craft beer fans

Come the new year, you may not be able to buy bottles of craft beer within the city limits of Lancaster, Calif. Mayor R. Rex Parris has thrown down a legislative gauntlet with a new city ordinance that would restrict sales of single-serving alcoholic beverages at certain businesses. And if local brewers and business owners don’t begin to work together, the flourishing craft beer scene in the Antelope Valley could suffer.

“The language in this ordinance is specifically anti-craft-beer,” said Bart Avery, co-founder of fast-growing Bravery Brewing in Lancaster. He added that the change in the municipal code could prevent other entrepreneurs from opening craft breweries in the Antelope Valley.

City Ordinance 1013 states “the purchase of alcoholic beverages intended for off-site consumption, when such beverages are purchased in smaller single servings, contributes to conditions and activities that constitute a public nuisance.” The goal behind the ordinance was to curb panhandling, public drunkenness and other public safety concerns by restricting sales of single-serving alcoholic beverages (which happens to include many of the most common formats for craft beer).

“City safety personnel and the L.A. County Sheriff’s Department reported numerous instances of unlawful activities and conditions occurring immediately at or adjacent to alcoholic beverage establishments where purchases are made for off-site consumption,” said Lancaster Associate Planner Jocelyn Swain while recapping the proposed amendment to the municipal code at a recent City Council meeting. “It has been the city’s experience that such unlawful nuisance activities are often the result of persons being able to purchase alcoholic beverages intended for off-site consumption in smaller single servings — a single can of beer, a smaller ‘airplane’ sized bottle of distilled spirits.”

The amendment to the city code provides exceptions for retailers with a public space of more that 10,000 square feet, as well as breweries, brewpubs and wineries. It’s the convenience stores, gas stations and liquor stores that are most affected by the new rules. While the idea is to take tall-boys of malt liquor and flasks of hooch out of the hands of Lancaster’s growing homeless population, the wording of the ordinance nixes the sale of many popular formats of craft beer, from single 12-ounce cans to “bombers” — the ubiquitous 22-ounce bottles popular with local and regional craft breweries.

“Convenience stores will stop selling craft beer because craft drinkers don’t want to buy six bottles,” Avery told the council after several other concerned business owners had appeared at the City Council meeting to express concerns over what they considered an ill-conceived ordinance.

“This [ordinance] would be very detrimental to our business,” said Jack Hana, whose family owns the Neighborhood Stop Liquor Market. He said nearly 40% of the store’s sales of alcoholic beverages are in single-serving formats, and that he’s had success addressing the nuisance behaviors by simply refusing to sell to problem customers. Mary Trichell, owner of the beer wholesaler W.A. Thompson Distributing, said that the ordinance “needs further review,” and that she’d “like to be part of the process.”

Parris, who alternately seemed annoyed by the proceedings or impressed by the impassioned businesspeople who spoke at the meeting, decided in the end to pass the new ordinance so that it would take effect in about six months, giving the concerned businesses time to draft an amendment to keep craft beer sales.

“You’ve convinced us that maybe this isn’t the best way to go, but you’ve also reminded us that you should have been here six months ago,” said Parris. “I like this level of community involvement. I really like this idea. I think that you guys have a reach that if we started working together would be beneficial to all of us.”

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