Posted on 07/13/2011 7:17:25 AM PDT by Solson
Date: Wednesday, July 13, 2011, 6:48am CDT
Mega-brewer Miller Coors must pull all of its beer — all 39 brands — from Minnesota store shelves because its branding license wasn't renewed before the state shutdown.
KSTP-TV has this absolute howler of a story, along with reaction from retailers, which is pretty much what you'd expect it would be. The beer company says it sent in the checks (brand licenses cost $30 for three years), but acknowledges they weren't processed in time.
The story doesn't address whether MillerCoors would have to pull its beer from bars, as well — but regardless, bars have their own shutdown problems. Many didn't renew their purchasing licenses before the shutdown, meaning they might run out of beer in the coming weeks, the Star Tribune reports. Many cigarette retailers are in similar straits.
mreilly@bizjournals.com | 612.288.2110 | @reillymark
But of course enforcement of the now unobtainable licenses is deemed critical.
I think Coors has been denied their due process.
Imposing arbitrary conditions making a legal business ineligible to sell product in this state is a violation of the interstate commerce clause. I think the State of Mn has a big law suit on its hands.
The Sioux Falls chamber of commerce pounds the airwaves with adds about moving business out of Minnesota and into Sioux Falls. It has worked for years.
State licenses in Minnesota renew throughout the year depending on when the business was started. Inability to renew licenses will soon start shutting down not only liquor wholesalers and retailers, but also auto dealers, auto auction companies, restaurants, a whole host of businesses that won’t be able to operate without Big Brother’s license stamp of approval. The state does a lousy job processing these items under normal circumstances. It will take them years to unscramble the mess that’s piling up. This is truly like watching a slow-motion train wreck.
In the words of baby Face Nelson: “Come and get me, coppers!” Seriously, how do they expect to enforce this? The “on the shelf” supply will be gone in days. More political posturing by the Governor, IMHO.
Awesome news for retailers in NOrthern Iowa, who’ve already experienced double-digit growth in the sales of lottery tickets and even smokes for some...
There is no need to worry.
If there is no one to issue licenses, there is also no one to enforce the law requiring the license. If an enforcer shows up, he is operating illegally because the government is shut down
The result is no government to meddle in the affairs of the business.
Same for WI.
Last time driving up to Minneapolis has me crossing the border at around 5PM. I was stunned at the traffic going into the Hudson area. There was always plenty of residents of WI working in MN for the 12 years I worked up there, but never in the volume I saw that day.
MN is going to continue hemorrhaging companies to WI, IA, SD ND and metro population to WI if they keep on this current path.
Mark Dayton is absolutely destroying that State.
The only things “shutdown” seem to be revenue or recreation related. Enforcement agencies are still on the job, for your protection of course.
When I was in my Twenties, you couldn’t buy Coors in Milwaukee. Once every couple of months, we’d take up a collection, and cross the river to bring back a trunk load of Coors. Then we’d have Coors parties. I can remember thinking, “We went through all that trouble for this?”
Sorry!
Who’s gonna make’em stop?
For Miller or Coors?
Just because you work there doesn’t make it real beer!
Send me your address, and I’ll mail you some Shiner or Rahr & Sons :)
AH! You pulled the old, “Smokey and the Bandit,” thing. Sweet.
No apologies needed. I just make the malt.
WI has some marvelous local products. There’s a couple I buy in NJ. Freeing the shelves of their overload of mass-market beers might just lure more folks into enjoying craft beer products from closer to home. >PS
I just drink it for the three free cases per month allotment. Can’t complain about that.
I’m still experimenting with beers, though. Looking for a high malt/low hop flavor, high alcohol content beer. We made a special brew in memory of a Scottish Maltster named Gordon who died of cancer two years ago. They gave me a bottle of it and at the time, I didn’t drink and hated beer. When I tasted it, it was extraordinary.
I told management that if they could make a non-drinker like me to love this as a product, the company would explode in sales.
Of course, you know management....
We couldn’t get it in Delaware when I was in my 20s either. But at the time I was working in Maryland so I always brought it home with me. And to this day I still drink it!!!
When I was pregnant my local liquor store and favorite watering hole stocked Coors N/A for me (it was called Cutter back then) by the time my daughter was born, the only N/A they were stocking was that because every one preferred it to the dreck from Annheiser Busch.
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