New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy has signed into law Senate Bill 4265, the long-awaited legislation to give more privileges to craft breweries, cideries, meaderies and distilleries. The legislation finally gives craft producers many of the privileges that are allowed in almost all other states.
Sponsored by state Sens. Vin Gopal, Paul Sarlo and Troy Singleton, the new law allows holders of a “restricted brewery license” ( which is now defined as 300,000 barrels/year; up from 10,000 barrels/year) to sell and distribute directly to retailers up to 50 percent of the beer that is produced on premises in each year. License holders in New Jersey to hold 25 off-premises special events and an unlimited number of on-premises special events and private parties.
It also finally dumps the requirement that customers must be given a tour of the production faciality before sampling, and now allows the licensee to hire servers and wait staff. They’ll also be able to sell some food items such as chips, nuts and packaged snacks as well as non-alcoholic beverages.
Manufacturing licensees can now also coordinate with food trucks and restaurants tom provide food on the premise. The bill also allows the licensee to offer discounts for promotional purposes establish membership programs that offer discounts and to display televised programing without the need to provide notice to or obtain a permit from the Division of Alcoholic Beverage Control.
The legislation is part of a broad package of changes to the state’s alcohol regulations. Previous attempts to modernize the regulations have collapsed after stakeholders were not able to reach a compromise.
A more detailed list of the new allowances here. Text of the bill language can be seen here.