Panel advances new Sunday beer law

INDIANAPOLIS (WISH) - Carryout beer sales on Sunday would become legal under a bill passed by a committee in the Indiana Senate Wednesday afternoon. However, it doesn't apply to all beer.

It would apply only to the beer brewed in one of 32 Indiana microbreweries.

Because microbreweries are open on Sundays, but customers can't take beer home with them, brewers say they are being treated differently than the owners of Indiana wineries who can sell wine on Sundays.

Jason Larrison of hoosierbeergeek.com put it this way to the committee, "To say that you're a supporter of microbreweries and not vote for this is to make them lesser than their sister industry."

Brewers showed off their wares in an elaborate sales pitch to an Indiana Senate committee on a bill to permit Sunday carryout. And they won support.

The committee voted 9-to-2 in favor of the bill with Sen. Tim Skinner (D-Terre Haute) saying, "Anything we can do to help them out, we need to do."

The problem is finding a way to help out the microbreweries without permitting Sunday carryout sales of other forms of alcohol, according to committee chairman Sen. Ron Alting (R-Lafayette).

Alting promised to kill the bill if it gets changed.

"What you see, as my mother always used to say, is what you get," he said.

And even if lawmakers can limit the bill to microbreweries, there are concerns.

Lisa Hutcheson of Mental Health America told the committee, "I think we should also be prepared for micro distilleries to come in. That could be on the horizon."

But for now, craft beer fans can drink up. The bill is headed to the full Senate for further consideration.

On a related matter, a committee in the Indiana House held a hearing that ended just a little bit ago on a bill that would permit alcohol sales on Election Day. No vote was taken but it could come later.