Unhappy with NY State keg law?

OK, you guys got my curiousity up, so I did some digging--gotta love digital access to newspaper archives.

Nothing about the drunk driving thing, but found this in an old San Fran Chronicle (Aug. 7, 1994):

"Perhaps more than any other individual, Lightner can claim credit for the 30 percent decline in drunk driving that's taken place since the

1970s. ... So what in the world is Lightner doing opposing her former allies? It's a balmy evening in Orlando, Florida, and Lightner is lounging just inside the open balcony door of a hotel room high in Marriott's World Center. Barefoot, wearing a loose cotton skirt and oversized T-shirt, Lightner is draped across an armchair, winding down from what she called her dog and pony show at the American Beverage Institute's annual conference. Since last November, as a lobbyist for the Washington, D.C.-based Berman and Co., Lightner has served as the institute's most visible weapon in its fight against .08 bills around the country.

The American Beverage Institute, Lightner insists, is hardly an evil cabal of hooch-pushers. It's a trade group made up primarily of restaurant and hotel executives who fear that a .08 limit will cut into alcohol sales by making social drinkers too nervous to tipple. Its members argue that MADD wants to impose de facto prohibition by slowly whittling away at people's right to drink. 'The MADD agenda has shifted to an anti-alcohol agenda,' says Rich Berman, the lobbyist who hired Lightner. 'They have talked about higher taxes, bans on advertising. These things have nothing to do with drunk driving and everything to do with dissuading people from drinking.'"

So lay off Candy, she likes beer now.

Reply to
Nick Dempsey
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Finishing a keg of beer in a month would require drinking the equivalent of about a six-pack a day.

That's why state legislators already are planning to amend a law that's only about a week old.

Personally I'd also still like to see the deposit drop from the stratosphere. I believe the only effect of a $75 deposit (on top of an existing $10 deposit) is to irritate responsible and legal purchasers of kegs. From where I sit this looks like a prohibition movement, not an attack on underage drinking (at least not an effective one).

-Howard

Reply to
Howard Hinnant

Here's my MADD story: Several years ago one of my kids won a MADD poster contest at her school (How ironic is that, I said to my wife) and it became a

3rd place winner in the regional finals. The night of the award presentation there was a bad ice and snowstorm. We called the HQ to see if the ceremony was still on. "Of course" was the answer. So, the organization which discourages dangerous drunken drivng required me to pile my entire family into a car for a horrifying 30 mile trip over ice covered roads. I'll admit I've sometimes driven when I shouldn't have, but I would never be so stupid to attempt to drive on a night like that. I let them know it in a letter to which they never responded. Hypocrites!

--Ken

Reply to
KEN8038

Nice to see that they're already realizing the silliness of the time limit, by the way.

But I don't agree about the deposit. Kegs are expensive, and if hte deposit isn't high enough to be a sufficient motivation to get people to return the things, a lot of kegs go missing. Either never returned, or converted into homebrew kettles and the like. If it's too cheap, people figure eating the

10 bucks or whatever is just part of the cost of getting the keg. Suffice to say, the keg costs the brewery a hell of a lot more than the paltry deposit.

-Steve

Reply to
Steve Jackson

I agree that the brewery should be fully reimbursed for lost kegs. I assumed that such a cost would be more than $10 and less than $75, but I have no data to back that up.

Does anyone know the approximate cost of an empty keg to the brewery?

I do have (limited) evidence that a forfeited $75 "registration deposit" would go to the state, not the brewery. In other words, just another tax revenue source. Brewery still gets screwed.

-Howard

Reply to
Howard Hinnant

I agree that the brewery should be fully reimbursed for lost kegs.

If they're not buying thousands, they run about $90 apiece, regardless of size; 1/4 kegs are only a couple dollars less than 1/2 kegs, same with sixtels.

I would guess that's probably true. Brewery really should be charging their own deposit. If they had been, maybe they wouldn't have passed the law. Ha ha. These laws all suck. Demand for beer is hydraulic; if you push it down one place, it will just pop up in another.

Reply to
Lew Bryson

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