3-Part Legislation Promotes Craft Beverage Industry

By: Samantha Flavell

Oswego County Today intern

Sen. George Amedore Jr. and Assemblywoman Patricia Fahy’s trail of legislation is intended to cultivate the promotion of New York State craft beverages.

The most recent addition to this string of similar legislation that began three years ago, was a bill that would allow New York State distilleries to sell New York State made beer, wine and cider by the glass.

The bill (S.2481/A.2994) was signed into law by Gov. Andrew Cuomo on July 25.

Businesses have already begun to reap the benefits of this new piece of legislation.

“Because of this bill we were able to open a little patio bar for the summer and have had 100 people stop by,” John Curtain, the co-owner and overseer of Albany Distilling Company said.

According to nysenate.gov there are more than 900 wineries, breweries, distilleries and cideries in New York State, the craft beverage business is thriving and ever expanding.

Legislators look at this bill as an opportunity to help promote farm distilleries.

To qualify as a farm distillery a certain percentage of the materials: grain, potatoes, fruit or sugarcane used to make the product must have been grown by a local New York State farm.

According to Curtain who is also the vice president of the Distillers Guild, 75 percent of the ingredients must be locally grown in New York State.

Oswego is home to its own Farm distillery, US Beer Brewers at the Cellar Door, on 17 W. Cayuga St.

Terry Fistick, the manager of US Beer Brewers at the Cellar Door, said the importance of this string of legislation in the success of small farm based businesses.

“I remember many nights where there was a group of 10 of us that wanted to go out and I liked beer and someone would say ‘Let’s go to Greene’s.’ I had no problem with that,” Fistick said. “But one person in the group was like ‘no I don’t want beer I want wine or vodka’ or whatever, so that whole group of 10 of us wouldn’t go to that place because one person didn’t want to.”

It is the ability to offer options to the customers that allows for a business to be attractive and successful and compete in areas like Oswego where there is a large number of bars that are not restricted by having to use local farm ingredients and can offer a wider variety to customers.

Businesses that use only New York State local products are given tax breaks as an award for limiting what they are able to use.

These tax breaks are granted in the hopes of promoting our local economy, local culture and help out small businesses.

“Tax breaks help, the license gives us a lot of options that any bar in Oswego helped us. There was a couple of events over the summer, Harborfest etc. where other bars couldn’t go to remote locations because the insurance cost was way too high for them,” Fistick said.

Though the tax breaks do help smaller businesses grow there are still areas that can be improved to help provide local businesses the best possible circumstances in which they may thrive.

“Where we see opportunities to prove how craft distilleries are improved, craft cideries and craft wineries were allowed to sell those they produce on site, New York State products on site,” Jacob Egloff, the Communications Directory for Assemblywoman Patricia Fahy said.

Fahy and Amedore have been involved with leading the legislation for improvement in the craft beverage industry for three years.

A year prior to the most recent legislation, two bills S.5707-A/A.7960-A and S. 5341/A.5580 were passed that allowed breweries and cideries to sell various New York State craft beverages by the glass.

In this legislation, however, distilleries were not included.

“This is the third bill in three years that we have gotten signed to get the craft beer industry signed New York State,” Egloff said. “This is how we decided to tackle them a couple of years ago the distilleries were not on our radar.”

Desiring for distilleries to be able to enjoy these benefits, Curtain worked to assist in the lobbying for this legislation as well as to bring the issue to the attention of Sen. Amedore and Fahy.

“This change gives them a whole new revenue source. You can serve all types of beverages,” Curtain said. “Great for bottom line and gives people more to do when they’re here as a spirit’s producer not everyone drinks beer, it opens up more choices for customers.”

As the vice president of the NYS Distillers Guild, Curtain was able to lobby in Albany a mere 500 yards from the capital.

“It didn’t require much lobbying,” Curtain said. “We had the benefit of being part of a popular industry and just had to nudge them [Amedore and Fahy] to get the bill passed with state liquor authority.”

For farm distilleries, breweries, cideries or wineries there are tax breaks for the business owners. The system works in hopes to promote the use of local business’ and to promote our local state economy.

“By cutting red tape and easing regulations on farm distilleries, we are supporting the growth and expansion of small businesses that create new jobs and drive economic growth across New York,” Gov. Cuomo said in a press release on nysenate.gov.

Though the movements were broken up into three different bills over the expanse of three years, Egloff said that the issues were handled as they were brought to their attention.

As distilleries became more prominent and popular it became clear that legislation was needed to provide the same benefits as cideries, wineries and breweries hold.

Now that the legislation has been passed business owners appear to be pleased with the new challenges and opportunities this bill offers.

“This is great because we can open their [customers’] eyes to new stuff,” Fistick said. “But at the same time, they’re scared to death to try something new. So sometimes that hinders what we can do. But we are slowly turning people around.”

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