Ed Schultz slams Florida state senate bill that will kill small business (VIDEO)

Big Money Killing Small Business

This is a story that should be covered widely. It really shows the corrosive nature of money in politics. It shows how it is the intent of big business to kill competition from small business. Florida Senate Bill 1714 will do just that.

WFTS Tampa Bay reports the following.

The bill in question would legalize 64-ounce growlers, but it would also ban brewers that produce more than 2,000 kegs a year from selling their bottles and cans directly. Instead, they’d have to go through a distributor who would sell it back to them at a marked up price.

“Based on what we sold last year, it would take $175,000 out of my bank account and give it to my distributor,” said Cigar City Brewing founder Joey Redner.

Last year, Cigar City Brewing produced just under 70,000 kegs.

According to the bill’s proponents, including sponsor Sen. Kelli Stargel, these microbreweries are currently operating in an ambiguous loophole outside of Florida’s three-tier system.

“We’re trying to figure out, you know, which of the three tiers do you want to operate in?” said Stargel, R-Lakeland. “Do you want to be a vendor or do you want to be a brewer? But if you’re going to be this blend there needs to be some amount of regulation there to make sure it’s fair for other bars.”

But guys like Ryan Dowdle say it’s the opposite of fair.

Dowdle was planning to open a microbrewery, called Angry Chair Brewing, this summer in Seminole Heights. He says this bill is drastically impacting his business model.

“They’re seriously inhibiting what we’re going to be able to do,” Dowdle said. “It’s just sad. I just wish they would look at it and say this makes no sense.”

Joe Redner said it best. “It’s taking profits from one company and moving it to the bank accounts of another company without that company adding any value into the system,” Joe Redner said.

This is where the takers vs makes argument really should be addressed. Legislation that forces a maker to repurchase his product from a distributor makes that distributor a taker. In the process it kills small business.

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