SB 1304: Craft Breweries

Full Details from the Florida Legislature

This bill is a companion to HB 903. Section 1 of SB 1304 authorizes a manufacturer to transfer to its licensed facility certain malt beverages that are brewed by another manufacturer. Manufacturers licensed under 561.221 may sell, transport, and deliver to a vendor, from the manufacture’s licensed premises, malt beverages that have been manufactured by the manufacturer. These allowed acts are limited to individual containers, kegs , and other bulk packages. This provision does not apply to growlers or manufacturers with total production volumes of more than 250,000 barrels of malt beverages per year.  This section of SB1304 also mandates than a manufacturer that has an existing distribution agreement with a distributor get permission in writing from the distributor before making a delivery of more than four kegs to any licensed vendor in the distributor’s sales territory. Section 1 also defines the term “barrel”.

Section 2 of this bill allows a manufacturer to terminate a contract with a distributor within no less than 120 days written notice if the sales of products to the distributor by the manufacturer do not exceed 10% of the distributor’s total alcoholic beverage sales for the previous calendar year. Section 3 revises some qualifications for distributors. SB 1304 changes inventory requirements from alcoholic beverages equal to at least 5% to at least 10% of the distributor’s annual case sales. The bill also changes the cost acquisition requirements from no less than $100,000 to no less than $10,000. SB1304 now mandates that when calculating inventory or percentage of annual sales the calculation must not include private label inventory whose label is owned by a vendor.

Section 4 of the bill provides an exception to the come-to-rest requirements for malt beverage manufacturers licensed under s.561.221(2) and manufacturers that deliver malt beverages to licensed vendors pursuant to s. 561.221(2)(g).  The bill takes away the language prohibiting a manufacturer licensed under 561.221(2) from making deliveries and allows these manufacturers to use a vehicle owned or leased by the manufacturer or any person disclosed on a license application filed by the manufacturer and approved by the division to make such deliveries. 

This bill will take effect on 7/01/2019.

Please note that this summary is based on the initially filed version of the bill. Click the Full Details link for updates on amendments, votes, etc.