Massimo Felici joins with insight ‘Fox & Friends’.
The coronavirus shakes up the liquor laws of America.
At least 33 states and the District of Columbia allow temporary cocktails during the pandemic. Only two – Florida and Mississippi – allowed themselves on a limited basis before the coronavirus struck, according to the United States Distilled Spirits Council.
Strange restaurants say it’s a lifeline, letting bartenders rehire, pay rent and re-establish relationships with customers. But others want to slow down states, saying decades-old laws provide for public safety.
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Sugar House bartender Shelby Minnix makes a Lavender Lemonade cocktail in a to-go bottle on Aug. 13 in Detroit. (AP)
Julia Momose closed Kumiko, her Japanese-style cocktail bar in Chicago, on March 16th. The next day, Illinois bars and restaurants began selling unopened bottles of beer, wine and liquor, but mixed drinks were excluded.
Momose spent the next three months collecting petition signatures and urging lawmakers to implement cocktails. It worked. On June 17, she donated her first go-drink: a Seaflower, made with gin, vermouth, Japanese citrus fruits and fermented chili paste. A carrier bottle, which serves two, costs $ 32.
Momose has been able to hire four of its furloughed employees back. A group they co-founded, Cocktails for Hope, is now helping restaurants buy bulk glass bottles for execution.
“Part of getting cocktails to get approval was embracing the fact that this will not repair everything, but it will repair something,” Momose said. “All of these little things we do will keep us open and our staff committed.”
American liquor laws – many of which date to the end of the Prohibition in 1933 – are a confusing mess that varies by state, city and province.
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Regulation for cocktail cocktails – which were adopted with effect from March – only deepens this confusion. Lawmakers approved exporting cocktails in some states; managers have approved them in others. Nevada did not pass a measure across the state, but individual cities such as Las Vegas and Reno allow them. In Pennsylvania, only restaurants and bars that account for 25% of the average monthly total lost sales can sell cocktails to go.
Most regulations for cocktail cocktails require customers to buy food with their mixed drinks. Lids like seals are commonly required, but some states say that liquor should also be transported in the trunk. Marbet Lewis, a founder at Spiritus Law in Miami who specializes in the alcohol industry, says IDs need to be checked – online or in person – by restaurants and bars, as well as by delivery managers.
Some states, such as Arizona, allow third-party delivery companies such as DoorDash to supply cocktails; Kansas allowed delivery only within a radius of 50 meters.
To-go cocktails provide a financial boost for restaurants. (Getty Images)
The laws also have different solar dates. Alabama will only allow cocktails through Sept. 15, while Colorado and Massachusetts have expanded them to next year. Michigan will allow them through 2025.
Last month, Iowa became the first state to allow permanent licensing and delivery of cocktails. Lawmakers in Ohio and Oklahoma are considering a similar measure, and Texas and Florida administrators have voiced support for the change.
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There is overwhelming public support for making cocktails go permanent, says Mike Whatley, vice president of state and local affairs for the National Restaurant Association. Between 75% and 80% of respondents said they support supporting cocktails in various state polls, Whatley said.
U.S. restaurants and bars have lost an estimated $ 165 billion since March due to lockdowns and demands for social distance, the association said. In a May survey of 3,800 restaurants, the association found that 78% of operators sold alcohol to lay off employees, compared with 62% of operators overall.
But some urge states not to be too hasty. Mothers against drunk driving ensured that permanent cocktails for transportation would lead to an increase in drunk driving, unless laws made clear that the drink could not be consumed until the buyer was in a safe location.
The U.S. government has not released preliminary data on drunk driving by 2020. But Jonathan Adkins, executive director of the Governors Highway Safety Association, said there was no anecdotal evidence that drunk driving was spiked during the pandemic.
Patrick Maroney, a former Colorado liquor manager who is now an advisor, said that carrying beer and wine – which was allowed in about 15 states prior to the pandemic – are different from cocktails because the containers are sealed by the manufacturer and the alcohol content is lower. Cocktails are mixed at the bar so the alcohol content can vary and they may not be properly sealed, he said.
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Maroney said states should ensure police and health officials are consulted before changing laws that have been in place for decades. He noted that California reported a spike in reports of alcohol supply to minors in April.
“Are law enforcement officials worried about an open-air atmosphere?” he said. “Is the law limited to consumption at home? How do they maintain it? ‘
Even before the coronavirus struck, there was pressure to modernize alcohol laws to reflect the growing popularity of food supply, Lewis said. She thinks lawmakers will have a hard time re-enacting bans on running cocktails as the pandemic becomes easier.
“Once you get the genius out of the bottle and there’s no problem, how do you get it back in?” sei se.
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However, restaurant and bar owners say they are not worried about patterns becoming so accustomed to execution that they will stop going even after the coronavirus is gone.
‘I think people are social. People enjoy the bar experience and like to wait, “said Dave Kwiatkowski, who owns the Sugar House cocktail bar in Detroit, which closed March 15 but could open July 10 for executive service.
Kwiatkowski usually has a staff of 16. For now, it’s just him at the door and a bartender making liquor.
“It’s enough to pay for the electricity and the insurance, and it’s nice to give at least a few people some jobs,” he said.
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Kwiatkowski wonders how he will handle the demand for reports when the pandemic is over and there is an audience in the bar on a Saturday night. But that will have to be a good problem, he said. He wants to permanently legalize cocktails for transportation.
“I think this is likely to change the way we do business forever,” he said.
