{"id":20423,"date":"2022-08-09T01:36:52","date_gmt":"2022-08-09T05:36:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.shorebeat.com\/brick\/?p=20423"},"modified":"2022-08-09T01:38:09","modified_gmt":"2022-08-09T05:38:09","slug":"opinion-with-brewery-moving-to-town-brick-officials-rightly-oppose-outrageous-regulations","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/2022\/08\/opinion-with-brewery-moving-to-town-brick-officials-rightly-oppose-outrageous-regulations\/","title":{"rendered":"Opinion: With Brewery Moving to Town, Brick Officials Rightly Oppose Outrageous Regulations"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"attachment_20424\" style=\"width: 1010px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/08\/IMG_5071-scaled.jpg\" data-rel=\"lightbox-image-0\" data-rl_title=\"\" data-rl_caption=\"\" title=\"\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-20424\" class=\"size-large wp-image-20424\" src=\"https:\/\/www.shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/08\/IMG_5071-1024x576.jpg\" alt=\"The future site of Icarus Brewing in Brick Township, Aug. 2022. (Photo: Daniel Nee)\" width=\"1000\" height=\"563\" srcset=\"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/08\/IMG_5071-1024x576.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/08\/IMG_5071-400x225.jpg 400w, https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/08\/IMG_5071-768x432.jpg 768w, https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/08\/IMG_5071-1536x864.jpg 1536w, https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/08\/IMG_5071-2048x1152.jpg 2048w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1000px) 100vw, 1000px\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-20424\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">The future site of Icarus Brewing in Brick Township, Aug. 2022. (Photo: Daniel Nee)<\/p><\/div>\n<p>A slew of regulations promulgated by the New Jersey Alcoholic Beverage Commission, generally viewed to have been passed at the behest of the state\u2019s powerful liquor lobby, has some brewery owners <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nj.com\/news\/2022\/07\/nj-breweries-getting-hammered-by-strict-state-rules-owners-say.html\">considering a move<\/a> out-of-state \u2013 just as a local brewery is making a significant investment in Brick Township.<\/p>\n<p>The new regulations, which went into effect July 1, impose about eight new major restrictions on breweries, ranging from a prohibition of the serving of food or soft drinks, to what can be shown on television while the business is open. The Brick Township council passed a resolution formally opposing the restrictions in a recent 6-1 vote, with Councilwoman Andrea Zapcic representing the sole dissenting stance.<\/p>\n<p>Icarus Brewing, a local brewery that has seen significant success in recent years at its location in Lakewood, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.shorebeat.com\/brick\/2021\/09\/brick-planning-board-formally-approves-brewery-complex\/\">announced it was moving to Brick<\/a> last year. According to county tax records, the company paid $2.1 million for the purchase of the former Shore Restaurant Supply property on Route 88, which was later demolished. A new brewery complex is planned to be constructed at the site, making it one of the township\u2019s most significant commercial investments.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe\u2019re not trying to cut anyone out by having breweries \u2013 we want to have more places for people to enjoy themselves,\u201d said Mayor John Ducey, endorsing the resolution opposing the state\u2019s regulations.<\/p>\n<p><strong>In short, the ABC\u2019s new rules do the following:<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Require a brewery tour before any beer can be consumed on or off site.<\/li>\n<li>Food is banned from being sold at breweries with the exception of \u201cwater and single-serve, pre-packaged crackers, chips, nuts and similar snacks.\u201d Third party food trucks are also banned from brewery properties.<\/li>\n<li>No mixed drinks containing beer may be sold.<\/li>\n<li>No free drinks or discounted drinks are allowed.<\/li>\n<li>Breweries may not sell coffee or soda that is not physically brewed at the facility.<\/li>\n<li>Breweries are banned from hosting \u201cpop up\u2019 shops, bazaars, or craft shows.\u201d<\/li>\n<li>A brewery may not host more than 25 special events per year, such as trivia nights, bingo games, televised sporting events, or live music.<\/li>\n<li>Breweries are prohibited from showing any television program \u2014 news, sports, entertainment and so on \u2014 that the brewery \u201cmarkets via social media.\u201d<\/li>\n<li>A brewery may not hire an outside marketing company to assist with any special event.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Political observers statewide \u2013 as well as many elected officials scattered across New Jersey \u2013 have said the ABC\u2019s regulations can largely be tracked to lobbyists representing the state\u2019s bars and nightclubs that hold traditional liquor licenses. Under New Jersey\u2019s unique (to put it kindly) liquor licensing laws, towns can sell such licenses for hundreds of thousands of dollars \u2013 in some locations, more than $1 million \u2013 which has had the cumulative effect of promoting the construction of large chain restaurants over locally-owned establishments. Holders of the licenses are most prominently represented by the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.njrha.org\/\">New Jersey Restaurant and Hospitality Association<\/a>, the name of which some have decried as deceptive since it does not make mention of the organization\u2019s heavy lobbying in favor of those few businesses that can actually afford the exorbitant cost of being able to do business under the current regulations. The mission is maintain the status quo \u2013 and never advance it.<\/p>\n<p>The lobbying groups have aggressively acted against breweries since license-holders consider breweries to be competing businesses.<\/p>\n<p>Ducey rightly, and alarmingly, said the regulations could have a particularly negative effect on Icarus.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cOne of the things Icarus does do is go to off-site festivals, and now they\u2019re going to be limited in doing this,\u201d the mayor said. \u201cThere are even restrictions on the types of TV shows they can have on or the music they\u2019re able to play.\u201d<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_11022\" style=\"width: 1010px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/05\/7961760700_944ef456e2_o.jpg\" data-rel=\"lightbox-image-1\" data-rl_title=\"\" data-rl_caption=\"\" title=\"\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-11022\" class=\"size-large wp-image-11022\" src=\"https:\/\/www.shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/05\/7961760700_944ef456e2_o-1024x682.jpg\" alt=\"A beer glass on top of a bar. (Photo: Ruocaled\/Flickr)\" width=\"1000\" height=\"666\" srcset=\"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/05\/7961760700_944ef456e2_o-1024x682.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/05\/7961760700_944ef456e2_o-400x266.jpg 400w, https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/05\/7961760700_944ef456e2_o-768x511.jpg 768w, https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/05\/7961760700_944ef456e2_o-631x420.jpg 631w, https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/05\/7961760700_944ef456e2_o-640x426.jpg 640w, https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/05\/7961760700_944ef456e2_o-681x453.jpg 681w, https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/05\/7961760700_944ef456e2_o.jpg 1980w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1000px) 100vw, 1000px\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-11022\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">A beer glass on top of a bar. (Photo: Ruocaled\/Flickr)<\/p><\/div>\n<p>The regulations were initially proposed in 2019, causing a similar outcry. The measures were delayed because of the coronavirus pandemic, but quietly re-emerged this summer and went into effect. The ABC, for its part, outright acknowledged the influence of the liquor lobby on its decision-making, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cbsnews.com\/video\/new-jersey-cracks-down-on-craft-breweries\/\">telling CBS News<\/a> in 2019 that the ruling was meant to \u201cstrike a balance between the craft brewing industry and restaurants.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>There are <a href=\"https:\/\/njbia.org\/njbia-2022-business-climate-analysis-shows-nj-still-worst-in-region\/\">few who would argue<\/a> New Jersey fosters a positive environment for small business owners and entrepreneurs, even in the absence of draconian regulations that purposefully target proprietors. It is shameful that the state has done what is seemingly impossible, clearly at the behest of a special interest, in making itself <em>even more<\/em> business-unfriendly. But, if there is a silver lining, it is that a strong majority of Brick Township\u2019s elected officials saw through another disastrous and woefully corrupt Trenton policy \u2013 and said something about it.<\/p>\n<div class=\"fcbkbttn_buttons_block\" id=\"fcbkbttn_left\"><div class=\"fb-share-button fcbkbttn_large_button \" data-href=\"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/2022\/08\/opinion-with-brewery-moving-to-town-brick-officials-rightly-oppose-outrageous-regulations\/\" data-type=\"button_count\" data-size=\"large\"><\/div><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A slew of regulations promulgated by the New Jersey Alcoholic Beverage Commission, generally viewed to have been passed at the behest of the state\u2019s powerful liquor lobby, has some brewery owners considering a move out-of-state \u2013 just as a local brewery is making a significant investment in Brick Township. The new regulations, which went into [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":20424,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"Opinion: With #Brewery Moving to Town, #Brick Officials Rightly Oppose Outrageous #NJ Regulations","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[4,2,1649],"tags":[4747,24,4484,4471],"class_list":["post-20423","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-life-in-brick","category-government","category-local-business","tag-brewery-regulations","tag-brick-nj-news","tag-featured","tag-icarus-brewing"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/08\/IMG_5071-scaled.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pgt2Ft-5jp","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20423","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20423"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20423\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/20424"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20423"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20423"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20423"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}