Help support WA State Senate Bill 5060

[BDawg]

FYI:
(Code, can you sticky this?)

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Fellow home brewers and wine makers,

We need your help to change Washington ’s homemade beer and wine transportation laws. While current regulations allow production of homemade beer and wine, they prohibit transportation or sharing of homemade beer and wine outside of the house of production and limit the transfer to only competitions or exhibitions.

The current regulations make most homemade beer and wine events practiced in the rest of the United States illegal. Simple things like “non-competitive” tastings at a club meeting or taking a bottle of beer or wine to a neighbor’s house are essentially illegal. This hinders the progression of the homemade beer and wine communities in Washington .

The Washington Homebrewers Association (WAHA) is leading the fight to change the laws. We are encouraging people to contact their legislators asking for support of support Senate Bill 5060. This bill will change the regulations to allow for homemade beer and wine to be removed from the house of production to be used for private consumption or use in community events such as tastings, club meetings, conferences, and competitions.

WE NEED YOUR HELP!

To be a part of the effort, go to: http://www.wahomebrewers.org/legal

You’ll find more information about the effort, background information on homemade beer and wine making, links to find your legislators, and everything you’ll need to help convince our leaders that passing this bill is a great change.

You simply need to send an e-mail and/or make a phone call to your three legislators asking for their support of Senate Bill 5060. Let them know about your experiences with homemade beer and wine and why you think supporting our community will be good for Washington . It just takes a simple message to help make this happen! Please go to the website today and get a hold of your legislators!

Pass the word on to other Washington brewers and wine makers. Please tell all of your Washington family and friends who enjoy homemade beer and wine about our effort and ask for their help too! More legislative contacts will increase our chances of passing the bill!

Thanks for your support of Washington’s home brewers and winemakers!

Cheers,

Mark Emiley
WAHA Executive Chair
mark@wahomebrewers.org

[BadRock]

Best of luck!

[UnaHopper]

Sent my e-mails today. With any luck, we'll get this law changed and have the NHC in Seattle someday.

[lucybear999]

Just sent e-mails as well. My better half makes wine, so able to mention that as well. We live near Redhook and St Michelle, so hopefully our legislature guys will be supporting this as part of the push for tourism.

* Mentioned all of the touch places where we spend dollars: LHBS, Gas Station for Propane, dirt and fertilizer for Cascade home grown hops, CO2 recharge from AirGas, etc etc etc...

Let's push this thru.....NHC>>>NHC>>>>>NHC......we can dream, can't we?

[UnaHopper]

Hell, I bet all of us transport and drink homebrew outside the home at one time or another. Might as well just make what we do legal. Not like anybody really cares. It my understanding even the liquor board doesn't have a issue with the bill.

[Whitebeard_Brewer]

Good luck with that....we have a bill up this year, that will raise the legel limit from 6% to 17%......and hopefully legalize homebrewed beer. At least, that was in last years bill.

[nautwerks]

Sent my emails off last night!

[BDawg]

Thanks guys-

Please help us in WAHA get the word out on this. Have your friends and neighbors (who you give samples to, right?) call their reps too. Remember, It's ILLEGAL for you to even bring 1 bottle over to your next door neighbor's house due to the transportation restrictions in the current law. Nothing says this has to be just US. ALL WA VOTERS can push for this, so get them to call and write. THREATEN TO CUT THEM OFF if you have to!

Bottom line, it's asinine that we can't have the NHC here even though most of the hops used to brew our beer are grown here.


Thanks-