Playing Quarters with the Alcohol Code Revision Commission

On July 18th, the Alcohol Code Revision Commission had their first of five meetings. If you are looking for the words “cold beer,” you won't read them here, nor in the minutes of the meeting. What is the purpose of this group? If you go to the website, it says they have three primary functions:

• To protect the economic welfare, health, peace and morals of the people of this state
• To regulate and limit the manufacture, sale, possession, and use of alcohol and alcoholic beverages
• To provide for the raising of revenue

 
The “what we do” is probably not why you are reading this; you want to know what happened.

We gained some interesting factoids. Did you know there are 272 types of alcohol permits? The good news some on this commission do believe that we need to “make the code more understandable and less complex.” Best part of the discussion? Mr. Buskirk’s response to finding out about this information, “I can’t believe we have over 200 permits currently.” We can’t either Mr. Buskirk.

The most interesting discussing was around escrow permits. A permit that goes into escrow is for a variety of reasons: “Death of the owner, transfer of business plan or owner, etc.” So, what do you do with all these permits sitting in escrow? According to Representative Smaltz, “… the permits belong to the state.”

The Deputy Mayor of Fishers, Leah McGrath, spoke at the meeting. One of the most important take-aways from her remarks: “The quota system for us doesn’t work. Maybe we should remove the boundaries for the system. We need to help those who have made investments already.”

So, no, cold beer was not a part of the discussion, but there are some items from this meeting that play an important role in how our communities in Hamilton County continue to grow their business community.

Since we are talking about alcohol, some of you might have heard of the game, “quarters.” If not, the way it works is simple. Each player takes turns bouncing a quarter off the table and into the glass. If the attempt is successful, the player gets to give the person of their choice a drink. If you make 3 attempts in a row, you get to make a rule.
This commission is currently playing quarters. We need to make sure that with only 4 more meetings left, that the rules they create support businesses in Hamilton County. ​