How do homebrew busts go down in MS and AL

[DocBrown]

Oh then I hear a radio ad for a local guy running for governor that states "I believe that the Holy Bible is the word of God"............Why? I mean why the hell do I care about this man's religion? I care if he can fix my screwed up state.

I'm not sure whether you lean Republican or Democrat (I consider myself a conservative independent), but here's what I understand about the gubernatorial candidates in Alabama:
Bentley explicitly stated that he would veto alcohol legislation. He might be good on some other issues, but he's likely bad for beer culture in our state.
Moore's claim to fame is his refusal to take the Ten Commandments down from his courtroom wall. He's going to be at least as much of a Bible-thumper as Bentley, and I've seen even fewer positives for Moore.
I don't know quite as much about Byrne, but he appears to be a clone of Riley. For what it's worth, Riley was originally intending to veto the gourmet beer bill last year but bowed to pressure from all the phone calls he got slammed with. He has vetoed a number of other alcohol related bills. If Byrne is in line with Riley on this issue, he probably won't be as bad as Bentley or Moore, but he's probably not going to be a net negative where beer laws are concerned.
James is a Presbyterian (as opposed to the ruling Southern Baptists and Church of Christ/Church of God crowds that are overwhelmingly neo-prohibitionist) and seems to have a bit of a libertarian streak - in other words, he's not starting from an anti-alcohol philosophy. A friend of mine is working on James' campaign, and I think James' primary concerns are economics and business related. I think he'd respond quite favorably to the brewery modernization act, and it appears he'd be pretty open to other alcohol bills, especially where it offers a net positive to the state income.

I really don't know anything about the Democratic candidates, and my thoughts on the Republicans may be a bit off. But that's my take so far.

 

[slowbie]

Most of these laws not matter what state are stupid............1) Alabama - Beer 16oz or below container...why? 2) All states have some sort of limit on ABV on beer.......Why? 3) Homebrewing limits? (Granted hard to track) Why?

Kind of nit-picking, but according to this wikipedia entry, only eight states have a beer ABV limit. A few more require beer above a certain ABV to be sold under a liquor license or in state controlled liquor stores, but most states have no ABV limit.

 

[SumnerH]

Kind of nit-picking, but according to this wikipedia entry, only eight states have a beer ABV limit. A few more require beer above a certain ABV to be sold under a liquor license or in state controlled liquor stores, but most states have no ABV limit.

Note that that Wikipedia entry isn't wrong per se, but it's pretty misleading in a lot of areas--for instance, it notes that Virginia has no open container law. That's true, but almost every county or city* does, which in effect makes open container illegal in the vast majority of the state.




*VA is strange in that cities aren't in counties; every city is outside of a county, and no county contains a city; every city in VA is like that. Outside of VA, Baltimore, MD, Carson City, NV, and St Louis, MO are the only analogous independent cities in the nation that aren't in a county.

There are, however, many cities that share a border with the coterminous county a la Denver, Nashville, Philly, San Francisco, New Orleans, Honolulu, and tons of others, and there are 4 other notable goofy localities in Nantucket (coterminous town/county), Miami-Dade Florida (federated county/city), New York City (subdivided into 5 burroughs, each of which is coterminous with a county) and Washington DC (federal district outside all states).

 

[passedpawn]

*VA is strange in that cities aren't in counties; every city is outside of a county, and no county contains a city; every city in VA is like that. Outside of VA, Baltimore, MD, Carson City, NV, and St Louis, MO are the only analogous independent cities in the nation that aren't in a county.

That is weird.