BeerBorg

Informative post, thanks.

This same scenario could play out in many places around the country as the activities described are popular in club/social oriented LHBS's.

I guess it's more a matter of whether it's worth raiding them and/or how much a bug up their butt the local authorities get about it.

It also seems, from the article, that serving beer at the LHBS is actually pretty much okay as long as you do it in a private setting, such as an office, rather than on the sales floor. A closed tasting room would solve this problem. That, or a liquor license, which may be at the root of the nub, since the gummint is always looking for ways to get more revenue.

Either way, it almost seems like a tempest in a teapot. I can't see state troopers running me to the ground because I transport a six-pack of homebrew half a mile away to my dad's house for Crimmit.

It just seems like a waste of resources. Damn fine place to live if this is where they put their efforts towards fighting crime.

Well, they can't make any more pot busts, so they have to arrest people on some other stupid charge.

And I'm eager to see the response from AHA. They carry more clout on our behalf than individuals or even local businesses, and they are active in the political arena, looking after our interests.

Which is why we should all be members and support them. Seriously, folks, if you're not an AHA member, go to their website and sign up. It's worth it many times over.

My LHBS has its taps at the back of the store for customers to sample their latest creations and we can walk the store with our sample as we shop. This may go to the wayside now that this is in the news, it may give enforcement officers some more ammo to crack down on the Home Brewing Shops. I hope this will not become a trend in the states but Monkey see Monkey do. I wonder if a partition was placed around the taps if this would work.

Owner Tom Schurmann said the division issued his employee a citation for serving alcohol to an underage person and gave him a citation for alcohol sales without a license.

There is pretty little info about the actual incident. And I'm not in the homebrew shop business, so I can only speculate, but I imagine the "serving alcohol to an underage person" was the main reason for the "Sting".
My guess is they knew alcohol was being served there (otherwise why else send in an underage person) and wanted to see if they would get served. They probably HAD to tack on the other citation as a result of the first. I don't see this as a "cracking down" on homebrew shops.
I've been in and out of the bar business most of my life...Always Card!

SomeGuyBrewing wrote:...but I imagine the "serving alcohol to an underage person" was the main reason for the "Sting"...

That was sort of my take away as well.