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Now that is real scary?
No more beer in Minnesota because of government shutdown?
I bet that will cause people to start rioting in the streets!!!!! And give the Minnesota Libertarian Party and opportunity to preach their mantra of no government regulation of liquor. I also bet the price of weed will skyrocket as people seek alternative intoxicants. I wonder if that creep David Dorn will accuse me of turning in these new pot smokers to the police? Don't worry David Dorn, I am in Arizona and those potential pot smokers are in Minnesota. It would be damn near impossible for me to snitch on them. On the other hand you get your jollies by destroying peoples lives by spreading lies about them, so I guess you could care less about that. Who cares if the facts get in the way of a good lie. At least that's probably how you feel about it. Minnesota government shutdown, mixed with snafu, may lead to beer shortage July 13, 2011 Minnesotans will have to head to the Rockies to get Coors Light if something isn't done about their state's government shutdown that may soon lead to scores of beers being pulled from store shelves. MillerCoors, the maker of Miller High Life and 38 other beers, found itself caught in typical government red tape when it was informed that it had overpaid a state-mandated registration. Minnesota makes brewers register every three years for each product that they sell in the Land of 10,000 Lakes. The cost is only $30 per brand, a drop in the bucket to such a brewer, which might be why it accidentally overpaid. By the time the state notified MillerCoors of the error, and the company had resubmitted the registration and signed a new check with the proper amount, Minnesota's government had been shut. The state employees who could have approved the registrations were at home, possibly drinking beer, as they had been laid off since the state could not legally pay them. Minnesota, however, did not lay off alcohol enforcement officials who have instructed MillerCoors to devise a plan to get their cases of Coors, Blue Moon and other brands off the shelves in supermarkets and liquor stores. "I would suspect within days to see that product leave the shelves," Doug Neville, a spokesman for the Department of Public Safety, told the Minnesota Star-Tribune. As the summer kicks into high gear and tempertaures rise, Beermageddon couldn't have come at a worse time. "With 39 brands at stake in one of our largest markets in the country during the most important selling period of the year, we do not take our business of ensuring proper state licenses lightly," MillerCoors spokesman Julian Green told the Associated Press. "We are currently in discussions with the state to bring this issue to resolution." If a resolution does not take place, raise a glass to these beers that will no longer be enjoyed by Minnesotans: Blue Moon Pale Moon Belgian Style Pale Ale, Coors Banquet, Coors Light, Coors Light 3.2, Foster’s Lager Beer, Foster’s Premium Ale, Grolsch Amber Ale, Grolsch Blonde Lager, Grolsch Light Lager, Grolsch Premium Lager, Hamm’s, Hamm’s Genuine Draft Style, Hamm’s Special Light, Henry Weinhard’s Dark, Henry Weinhard’s Hefeweizen, Henry Weinhard’s Pale Ale, Henry Weinhard’s Private Reserve, Icehouse Beer, Keystone Light Beer 3.2, Killians Irish Red 3.2, MGD Light 64, Mickey’s Ice Ale, Mickey’s Malt Liquor, Miller Genuine Draft, Miller High Life 12/16 oz can, Miller High Life Ice, Miller High Life Light 12 oz can, Miller Lite 3.2%, Miller Lite Beer, Milwaukee’s Best #1 , Milwaukee’s Best Ice, Milwaukee’s Best Light #1 3.2, Molson Canadian, Molson Canadian Light, Molson Golden, Molson Ice, Molson XXX, Olde English 800 Malt Liquor, Sparks Light. Is this good news for Miller's largest competitor Budweiser? Perhaps, but only temporarily. Budweiser's registrations expire in October and that brewer may suffer the same fate if Minnesota's government remains shut down. If that happened Minnesota would be depleted of 80-90% of its beer supplies. Restaurant and bars are allowed to serve up their remaining inventories but those types of retailers need a "buyer's card" in order to purloin spirits from wholesalers. Unfortunately, buyer's cards for 424 buyers are set to expire Aug. 1. The result could lead to a booze shortage. Talk about a buzz kill. Former Minnesota governor and current GOP presidential hopeful Tim Pawlenty said recently that the current shutdown could be a good thing and he wished the one that happened in 2005 while he was at the helm lasted longer. “I think it was nine days (of shutdown) at that time, and I think we could have gotten a better deal if we had allowed that to continue for a while and the people of Minnesota would have seen the issues play out a little longer,” the Republican told Politico at the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport.
Minnesota Bars Running Out Of Beer Due To Government Shutdown By Guest Blogger on Jul 13, 2011 at 8:30 pm Around 300 bars and restaurants in Minnesota will not be able to buy alcohol until the state reaches a budget agreement and ends its government shutdown. Since closing down all but the most important services on July 1, the state has stopped issuing the $20 buyer cards required by retailers to replenish their alcohol inventories — bad news for Minnesotans already hurting from the cuts to their social services. Restaurants are already reporting being low on inventories, and Frank Ball, the executive director of the Minnesota Licensed Beverage Association, calls the situation “crippling” to the alcohol retail industry. In an interview with Minnesota Public Radio’s Cathy Wurzer, Ball warned against beer spoiling in warehouses and bars closing: Wurzer: “The penalty for buying or selling alcohol without this card is about $250 for the first offense. Do you think it might be wiorth it to some of these bars and restaurants and liquor stores and their providers for that matter to just kind of chance it and risk paying he fine? Ball: “They’re sitting on millions of dollars worth of sales here, and they could be fined up to a thousand dollars for the suspension of their license for each event. But there’s nobody to enforce that law. So we don’t cover the wholesalers–that’s a decision they’ll have to make–but [with] our retailers, we’re telling them, if you’ve got a wholesaler that will sell to you, buy. Because otherwise if they run out of their product, our bars and restaurants are going to fold. They’re going to close.” Along with losing their neighborhood bars, Minnesotans may also have to cope with the loss of MillerCoor’s 39 brands of beer. After misfiling its brand-label registration paperwork in June, the company could not procure the necessary documents from the state before its offices shut down a couple of weeks later. But beer is only the latest victim in the state’s government shutdown debacle. Each day, Minnesota is losing $1.25 million from lottery sales and $200,000 from the closures of its state parks. By month’s end, the state coffers will be short $52 million it would have collected in tax revenues. And yet, as social services suffer and government workers idle without paychecks, lawmakers have made no movements recently toward a budget compromise. If the state legislature stopped focusing on politics and started focusing on people, we might start to see progress. –Sarah Bufkin |