Riverfront permits, carry-out growlers and Roger's status as lightning rod for esoteric regulatorydom.

Is anyone noticing a pattern?

2013: The Floyd County Health Department decides temporary food permits should apply to draft beer pours, and is proven mistaken.

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

2014: Indiana's requirement for weenies in the freezer (food service requirement) comes under scrutiny, and is amended.

Another legislative win: Effective July 1, revised food requirements for Indiana brewery taprooms.

2015: Decades later, Indiana's riverfront development three-way permits suddenly become incompatible with carry-out sales from small breweries.

No wonder they want to be rid of me.

Bangert: Hidden law mean goodbye to LBC growlers?, by Dave Bangert (Lafayette Journal & Courier)

And then one day, just like that, Greg Emig found out his Lafayette Brewing Co. wasn’t supposed to be filling 64-ounce growlers for carryout of Eighty-Five, Star City Lager or any of the other fresh beer produced at the brew pub on Main Street.

Last fall, word started getting around among the Brewers of Indiana Guild that there was a glitch in state law that forbids carryout of any alcohol under special liquor licenses set up in economic development zones.

And now, after years of being tucked away in Indiana Code, the law was being enforced by the state’s Alcohol and Tobacco Commission ...

 ... The story started in October, about the time of Harvest Homecoming festival in the southern Indiana city of New Albany.

Profuse public thanks go to Senator Ron Alting and Representative Ed Clere for their diligent efforts to make necessary repairs to these and other strange statutory divergences. After all, the ATC doesn't write these laws; it merely enforces them.

The riverfront three-way permits referenced here obviously were not intended to be incompatible with small brewing in Indiana; it's all about the wording, and the likelihood is that the words will be fixed during the coming legislative session.

As always, stay tuned.

_

Bar Belle: "Liquor here, liquor there, liquor in New Albany."

LEO's Sara "Bar Belle" Havens caught the News and Tribune's August 31 news story about expanding New Albany's downtown riverfront development area to make possible more special three-way alcohol permits. She also took the opportunity to praise the local scene.

Liquor here, liquor there, liquor in New Albany

The New Albany mayor may help speed up the process of attaining liquor licenses for new businesses planned for the riverfront.

More bars/restaurants = good

Faster new bars/restaurants = awesome

If you haven’t been over to New Albany in a while, there are some great things happening. I went to River City Winery a few weeks ago, and it was great. The wine was decent and the food was yummy (brick oven-style pizzas). Also on my Favs of New Albany list are NA Exchange, Rich O’s, Pizza King, Tucker’s and La Rosita (which just opened a second location in Louisville at Floyd and Market).

Habana Blues recently joined La Rosita in migrating second locations southward, and taken in concert with NABC's bomber bottle distribution in Jefferson County, this represents an unprecedented New Albanian cultural invasion across the Mason-Dixon line. The fact that we're accompanied by recruits from Mexico and Cuba gives the enterprise a pleasingly multi-national feel.

I'll know more about the status of the three-way debate on Thursday night, when the amendment is discussed at the Marx Brothers comedy revival otherwise known as our twice-monthly city council meeting. I'm for it, although the timing has me a bit confused, and as usual, the topic has revealed New Albany's dysfunctional socio-political fault lines. I've written more at NA Confidential:

Riverfront three-ways: Alcoholic beverages vs. square meals?

CeeSaw whiffs on a fat pitch as council considers expanding the booze zone.