Alcoholic beverages: tied-house restrictions: on-sale retailers advertising.

The Alcoholic Beverage Control Act generally prohibits a manufacturer, winegrower, manufacturer's agent, California winegrower's agent, rectifier, distiller, bottler, importer, or wholesaler from furnishing or lending money or other thing of value to a person engaged in operating, owning, or maintaining an on-sale licensed premises. The act provides that the listing of the names, addresses, telephone numbers, email addresses, Internet Web site addresses, or other electronic media, of 2 or more unaffiliated on-sale retailers selling beer, wine, or distilled spirits of a nonretail industry member, as defined, in response to a direct inquiry from a consumer, as specified, does not constitute a thing of value or prohibited inducement, if certain conditions are met. The act includes among those conditions the requirement that the listing not refer to only one on-sale retailer or only to on-sale retail establishments controlled by the same retailer. The act creates a parallel exception from the general prohibition on furnishing or lending money or things of value for off-sale retailers, except that it does not reference other electronic media. This bill would broaden the exception for on-sale retailers described above by removing the requirement that the listing be in response to a direct inquiry and would include within the definition of a nonretail industry member brandy manufacturers and rectifiers. The bill would also permit the listing of contact information pursuant to these provisions for off-sale retailers, make conforming changes to reflect this inclusion, and delete provisions that would be redundant regarding off-sale retailers, as described above.