Bill Description: House Bill 276 would increase regulations on brewers, wholesalers, and dealers.

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Does it give government any new, additional, or expanded power to prohibit, restrict, or regulate activities in the free market? Conversely, does it eliminate or reduce government intervention in the market?

House Bill 273 would amend sections 23-1001 and 23-1003, Idaho Code, to add new regulations for licensed small brewers. These small brewers are currently limited to producing no more than 30,000 barrels of beer annually. This bill would change the definition to apply that threshold in the aggregate to beer produced in Idaho and to "any beer produced outside the state of Idaho."

The bill would also require a small brewer to "maintain a warehouse physically located within the state of Idaho" and "distribute its beer using employees of the brewery with equipment owned or controlled by the brewery."

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House Bill 273 would amend Section 23-1028, Idaho Code, which regulates licensed wholesalers and dealers who sell and distribute beer in Idaho. The law currently requires that they "sell and distribute beer in this state only from stocks of beer which have been unloaded, stored and maintained in a warehouse or warehouses owned or used by such wholesaler or dealer within the state of Idaho."

The bill would create a new requirement that the beer be "unloaded, stored, and maintained" in such a warehouse "for no less than twenty-four (24) hours." It would also require that the wholesaler or dealer be "physically located" within the state of Idaho.

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