PourGate 2013: It took two damn years, but this new law silences Dr. Tom Harris and the Floyd County Health Department.

We shall defend our island, whatever the cost may be, we shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender.
-- Winston Churchill

Since June of 2013, when the Floyd County Health Department blithely usurped its statutory authority by demanding that NABC obtain temporary food serving permits to pour pints of beer into plastic cups, we have proven it wrong three times.

First, with the Indiana Court of Appeals ruling Ft. Wayne v Kotsopoulus, then with an advisory opinion from the Indiana Attorney General's office, and finally with an actual state law providing even more excruciating detail as to why Dr. Tom Harris should lose his job.

Major thanks go to Rep. Ed Clere for authoring "SECTION 6. IC 16-42-5-30," of House Enrolled Act No. 1311, and shepherding the bill. It is what might be called an omnibus beer-related collection of seemingly minor directives, including the modification of the food service requirement for taprooms (more on that later), but allow me just this one observation.

Most of the media attention during this year's legislative session was centered on Senate Bill 297 and small brewer barrel limits. As time goes by, these limits will become increasingly relevant for our bigger industry players. But right now, with the vast majority of Indiana brewers still quite small, it's the smaller things that matter most.

Rep. Clere understands this, and is to be commended for it.

I've posted the complete tome at my NA Confidential blog. Included is the narrative, text of the new law, and links to the back story.

PourGate 2013: It took two years, but this new law silences Dr. Tom Harris and the Floyd County Health Department.

On June 14, 2013, the New Albanian Brewing Company was peaceably vending beer at Bicentennial Park, by means of a supplemental catering permit issued by the company's governing agency, the Indiana Alcohol and Tobacco Commission.

The Floyd County Health Department arrived and said that NABC also needed a temporary food serving permit.

I said no, that's incorrect.

They persisted, and a two-year-long struggle commenced.

Another year, another fresh round of Floyd County Health Department lies.

On the topic of Boomtown last Sunday, which was a fabulous success as a first-year music festival in downtown New Albany, I cannot put it to rest without mentioning the invaluable performance of the Floyd County Health Department.

Last year, the appropriately festooned Red Shi(r)ts specifically informed beer vendors that hand sanitizer and wet wipes were sufficient to pour draft beers, along with a non-statutory-based permit that is 100% bogus according to no less an authority than the Indiana attorney general himself (a ruling the FCHD refuses to heed). Now, the very same bureaucrats say we must have a hot water hand washing station, and in familiarly Orwellian fashion, they state that this was true last year, too -- just like last year, they said they'd always been enforcing fraudulent permits, when a public records request showed they hadn't.

That's why, as an entity, the FCHD is a lying piece of mongrel cur's feces -- and you can tell 'em I said so. Seeking to usurp the natural order of the state's regulatory division of responsibility is one thing; being unable to tell the truth ups the ante.

Last evening at Bicentennial Park, the brew crew assembled an insulated plastic drinking water cooler and a pail, filling the cooler with water from the hot liquor tank. Earlier in the day, our serving partners at Irish Exit had been told that one such station would suffice for the three vendors working under NABC's supplemental catering permit -- this coming after the roly-poly timer-server who visited us at Boomtown insisted that each participant have a station (how many lies does this make?)

Staff awaited the arrival of the inspector, who turned out to be the very same engorged fellow. He mumbled a few things to Irish Exit's workers and ignored NABC entirely, walking away without so much looking at the crucial addition.

Which means he didn't give us the yellow copy of his thumbs-up public health report, like the stack from last year, not a single one of which made the slightest mention of a hot water hand washing station.

I want my damned yellow sheet. Paper trails are important for bureaucrats, but they're even more important for potential lawsuits. You don't think I've forgotten the e coli references on the department's web site, have you?

NABC and PourGate: Total and unequivocal defeat for the Floyd County Health Department, says the state attorney general.

To get the full, surreal history of what we've come to call PourGate, I'd recommend pouring a real beer, settling into a comfortable fireside seat, and heading over to my NA Confidential blog, where searching for Floyd County Health Department should yield plenty of hits.

To summarize: According to the Attorney General of the state of Indiana, NABC's position v.v. PourGate is correct on all counts, and the FCHD's approximate location is atop a rapidly yielding pit of quicksand.

In the matter of NABC and PourGate, total and unequivocal defeat for the Floyd County Health Department

The complete unedited advisory opinion is here:

Complete text: “Floyd County/ New Albany ordinance issue in violation of IC 7.1-3-9-2, 7.1-3-9-6″

The AG's opinion should be sufficient to win half the battle. Next comes NABC's decision how to proceed with reference to the retaliatory and defamatory photo posted on the FCHD's web site earlier this year. Remember it?

Isn't it amazing how much time must be expended to battle arrogance of this caliber?

Yeah, it's been a while. Here's mostly why.

Sorry about that. I've been very busy. It wasn't my choice to spend my summer "vacation" battling bureaucrats ,,, but there it is.


Roger on NABC, the Floyd County Health Department and a tort claim notice

Tuneless zombie bureaucrats? Tiresome thirst-inducing critters, those pesky facts.

What have I been doing on my summer vacation?

Taking swings at zombie craft beer, Forecastle and the Floyd County Health Department, that's what.

Shift to LouisvilleBeer.com to read all about it.

Tiresome thirst-inducing critters, those pesky facts.

THE POTABLE CURMUDGEONJuly 1, 2013

A conscientious craft beer zealot needs to stay informed about world affairs of the sort not commonly discussed at RateBeer. After all, yeast isn’t the only culture that matters, and a multi-disciplinary approach can be educational. For instance, consider the nation of Turkey, which straddles the fault line between Europe and Asia. 

Read the rest of the story

"NABC vs. Floyd County Health Department", at Louisville Beer Blog.

Kevin Gibson's Louisville Beer Blog delivers as promised: It's a locally-oriented, fun look at the Louisville beer scene. He's a longtime LEO columnist and free-lance writer.

Kevin offers a solid take on the current imbroglio afflicting my world here: wordpress.com/2013/06/21/nabc-vs-floyd-county-health-department/">NABC vs. Floyd County Health Department).

My thought about this strange and sudden clamp-down is “why?” Baylor called it a “power grab” in a press statement and filed an appeal, standing up for the fact that this abrupt mandate has no precedent. Meanwhile, Floyd County Health Officer Dr. Tom Harris is calling it a “state regulation,” and that vendors pouring beer at any public event must indeed pony up the $20 for a food permit. Yet, Baylor, who has been doing business in Floyd County and the surrounding areas for years, has never experienced it or even gotten a whiff of it until now.

Photo courtesy of Kate Caufield.

Week in review: Current history of the Floyd County Health Department's great power grab of 2013.

It's dress down day at the health department,
and Dr. Harris is dining at Chick fil-A.

Let's review the past week, beginning with tonight, when there'll be a concert at Bicentennial Park featuring local favorites Ballroom Blitz.

Because these days New Albany periodically functions almost as an urban area should, it is achieving a modicum of pleasurable results.

WAVE-3: 'New' New Albany attracting visitors and dollars.

People like it, and this is an utterly alarming development for Floyd County's perpetually reactionary and non-creative political ruling class. About the best idea these second-raters can come up with is to harass those who actually are "doing" something, by means of petty bureaucratic racketeering.

Another day, another Floyd County Health Department power grab.

The beer and wine sellers are being told they are entitled -- privileged, even -- to be regulated and cited according to statutes as yet unrevealed, ones apparently unknown outside Floyd County, while being held weirdly responsible for certain known food handling regulations (for pre-packaged liquids) that specifically exempt us from learning procedures we’ll subsequently be cited for not knowing, while we have one simple question: Exactly how is it that a local health department trumps our own beer and wine business’s regulatory authority, the Alcohol & Tobacco Commission?

Food handling, panhandling and regulatory free-basing.

But amid the tortuously Orwellian world of Dr. Tom Harris's health department, it's just another $20 slapped down to fund programs his county political bosses won’t. Others in New Albany might be interested in the implications, assuming they're finished with the party intended to congratulate themselves for … for … er, I guess for holding congratulatory parties.

Health Department's revenue enhancement + Develop New Albany's event calendar = ?

Whilst swatting at the torpid newfound regulatory mosquitoes, NABC prepared to contest the citation issued last Friday.

Preview: NABC's appeal to the Floyd County Health Department.

The full appeal then was published, as full transparency always matters, both to NABC and NAC.

ON THE AVENUES: The long train of usurpations adds a caboose.

The News and Tribune picked up the story, offering Dr. Harris the opportunity to inform a breathless world that NABC’s appeal would be overturned, before ever being heard, thus rendering the concept of “due process” into the sort of thin, worm-ridden gruel last seen being eaten by peasants in a Dostoevsky novel.

On the song and dance routine of Dr. Tom Harris.

Perhaps the leftovers can be fed to the inmates at the county jail?

It is now 8:00 a.m. on Friday, and there's a show to cater tonight. Deadlines approach. As NABC awaits an appeal, a procedure already publicly compromised by the health department's chieftain's detached smugness, we have an obligation to proceed judiciously. Let's slow down this game for just a moment.

In the short term, we will comply with the health department's demands for tribute, however specious, and pay $20 each time we pour pre-packaged alcoholic beverages into plastic cups. We will do so under specific written protest, each and every time. In these instances, we will comply in such a manner as to fulfill ATC regulations, which we regard as pre-eminent, and that we always seek to implement.

In short, the master event caterer (NABC) to whom the ATC permit is issued will indeed possess a temporary food service permit.

County government can rest at ease, safe in the knowledge that further taxation of recalcitrant tea-baggers in the Woods of Lafayette need not be considered, after all.

Kudos to those who have been reading the past week's dispatches here at NAC. The hit counter has been spinning furiously. You are urged to speak with or write your local elected representatives with input on these and other matters. As for this particular issue, the short-term has concluded. Mid- and long-term strategies begin today. Thank you.