JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – It's been a booming business not just in Jacksonville but across the nation: Craft breweries seem to be popping up everywhere. Northeast Florida has at least seven breweries, like Bold City and Intuition to name a few.
The Florida Independent Spirits Association, an advocacy group for in-state alcohol retailers, said the in-state breweries are valued as partners, which is why it said it wants clarification from the state on how breweries fall under the Tourism Exemption Act. It said in a statement, "Everyone, including craft brewers, deserves to know the rules of the road."
News4Jax spoke with Brian Miller, the owner of Bold City Brewery Company. He said he doesn't think that the Florida Independent Spirits Association is going to take away the tap room, but even if that were the case, he's built his business on a different model.
It was business as usual Friday with Mad Manatee on tap. Eighty percent of beers canned at Bold City Brewery start here, and end up stacked and ready to be distributed.
Which is why the petition, filed by the Florida Independent Spirits Association, isn't something Miller is concerned about.
The petition wants the state to clarify two things: First, it says that some vendors that apply for brewing permits are denied while some are granted permits. It said there is no consistency.
The second issue the association wants clarified is the definition of the Tourism Exemption Act, which would include the question of whether craft brewers can sell their packaged beer to consumers at the same place it's brewed.
"We don't know if they're trying to shut down our tap room, too. I mean, we shouldn't jump to that conclusion," Miller said. "These guys are really our partners in business, and so I see things as they are maybe, and I don't see that they're trying to shut down our tap rooms."
Miller believes the tap rooms are beneficial to the Florida economy and said they most definitely attract tourism.
Florida law requires the manufacturer, distributor and retailer of alcohol to be independently-owned. An exemption was made in 1984 when Anheuser-Busch was allowed to sell glasses of beer out of its microbrewery at Bush Gardens in Tampa.
"I always try to put myself in other peoples' position, and so if I was a retailer that was a mile down the street from a brewery, and the brewery brews beer, and they make it right here, they manufacture it, and they don't have all the associated cost of going to the distributor and going to the retailer, as a brewery I could undercut my retailer," said Miller.
Members of the association said in the petition they are suffering economic injury because of the "unfair advantage over FISA's members who lawfully adhere to the three-tier system imposed by the Florida Beverage law."
"Let the dust settle so to speak on these things before we kind of jump to conclusions," Miller said.