{"id":26333,"date":"2019-05-16T13:38:52","date_gmt":"2019-05-16T19:38:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/?p=26333"},"modified":"2019-05-16T13:54:34","modified_gmt":"2019-05-16T19:54:34","slug":"bill-amended-to-change-farm-winery-definition","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/?p=26333","title":{"rendered":"Bill amended to change farm winery definition"},"content":{"rendered":"

The definition of a farm winery would change under a bill advanced to select file May 15.<\/p>\n

\"Sen.
Sen. Tom Briese<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

LB592, as originally introduced by Sen. Tom Briese of Albion, would have addressed the state Liquor Control Commission\u2019s ability to close establishments due to violations of the Liquor Control Act.<\/p>\n

A General Affairs Committee amendment, adopted 35-0, stripped those provisions and replaced them with portions of LB584, introduced by Sen. Mike Hilgers of Lincoln.<\/p>\n

The amended bill would reduce from 75 to 60 the percentage of fruit or other suitable agricultural product grown in Nebraska required to meet the definition of a farm winery. It also would increase from one to four the number of branch outlets that allow sampling and sale of a farm winery\u2019s product.<\/p>\n

Hilgers said the amendment would encourage Nebraska wineries to expand.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs these entrepreneurs keep growing, they use more grapes and it becomes harder and harder to reach the 75-percent threshold,\u201d Hilgers said.<\/p>\n

An amendment offered by Peru Sen. Julie Slama would have allowed farm wineries to sell beer and other alcoholic beverages if the winery owner also holds an appropriate retail license.<\/p>\n

Under current law, Slama said, Nebraska wineries must apply for a one-day Special Designated License to sell alcohol other than wine when they host events.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you\u2019ve got a college graduation party scheduled for Friday, [a] wedding scheduled for Saturday and a family reunion scheduled for Sunday, they\u2019d have to apply for a separate SDL for each of those days.\u201d She said. \u201cThis leads to stacks upon stacks of paperwork.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sen. Curt Friesen of Henderson supported the Slama amendment, saying it would encourage economic development in small towns.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019re not going to put anybody else out of business. They\u2019re not going to damage the distributors,\u201d Friesen said. \u201cAll they want is the ability for someone to come in and have a beer instead of a glass of wine.\u201d<\/p>\n

Briese opposed the amendment, which he said could erode Nebraska\u2019s three-tiered liquor control system that separates producers, distributors and retailers.<\/p>\n

Sen. Carol Blood of Bellevue said she opposed Slama\u2019s amendment because it would allow Nebraska wineries to sell other alcohol while non-Nebraska wineries could not do the same, potentially leading to lawsuits.<\/p>\n

Sen. John Lowe of Kearney also opposed the amendment, saying it would allow local wineries to become \u201csuper bars\u201d that would compete unfairly with other alcohol vendors.<\/p>\n

Slama\u2019s amendment failed on a vote of 11-21.<\/p>\n

Following adoption of the committee amendment, LB584 advanced to select file on a vote of 38-0.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The definition of a farm winery would change under a bill advanced to select file May 15. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":26308,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"colormag_page_container_layout":"default_layout","colormag_page_sidebar_layout":"default_layout","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[10],"tags":[185],"class_list":["post-26333","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general-affairs","tag-sen-tom-briese"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/05\/LB592BrieseErdman5-15-19a.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26333","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=26333"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26333\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":26339,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26333\/revisions\/26339"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/26308"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=26333"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=26333"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=26333"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}