SAN DIEGO UNION-TRIBUNE EDITORIAL
Hard to swallow

Alcopops move is legislative chicanery

September 3, 2005

One of the favorite tricks in the state Capitol, particularly as a legislative session winds down, is a tactic called "gut and amend" – a legislator hijacks a bill that has already been through most of the process, guts the original contents and substitutes something different as an amendment. It's a banana-republic abuse of the democratic process, and a perfect example of it is a bill now nearing final approval that would clearly increase the problem of alcohol abuse among young Californians at the behest of the alcoholic beverage industry.

The bill is AB 417, which began life early this year as a measure to make technical changes to existing law regulating "beer tastings" sponsored by industry trade associations. Hearings were held. It passed the Assembly on a unanimous vote on May 16 and got its second reading in the Senate on June 30.

But on Aug. 22, AB 417 was largely gutted and amended. Suddenly, it was a bill that would officially legalize the industry practice of labeling sweet, soda pop-like alcoholic beverages known as "alcopops" as beer instead of distilled spirits. The new bill was an attempt to head off moves by state Attorney General Bill Lockyer, who had sent letters to regulators in May saying that under existing law a product that includes any amount of distilled spirits must be defined and taxed as a distilled spirit.

The difference was critical because in California beer is taxed at 20 cents a gallon, while distilled spirits are taxed at $3.30 a gallon. Defining alcopops as beer meant the price could be much cheaper, thus making them much more affordable to the people who drink them most, albeit illegally – teenagers.

Critics are calling the new AB 417 the "alcopops marketing forgiveness act." But that may be overly kind, given the damage it could do. The bill could come up for a final Senate vote on Tuesday. Somebody needs to gut this wild turkey to death.