Beverage containers: wine and distilled spirits.

(1) Existing law, the California Beverage Container Recycling and Litter Reduction Act, requires that every beverage container sold or offered for sale in this state have a minimum refund value. A beverage distributor is required to pay a redemption payment to the Department of Resources Recycling and Recovery for every beverage container sold or offered for sale in the state to a dealer, and the department is required to deposit those amounts in the California Beverage Container Recycling Fund. The money in the fund is continuously appropriated to the department to pay refund values and administrative fees to processors, to fund a reserve for contingencies and, after setting specified funds aside, for various purposes relating to beverage container recycling, litter cleanup and prevention, and education. A violation of the act is a crime. Existing law defines the term "beverage" to include certain types of products in liquid, ready-to-drink form and excludes, among other things, wine or wine from which alcohol has been removed. This bill would revise this definition of beverage to include wine, or wine from which alcohol has been removed, sold in an aluminum beverage container and distilled spirits sold in an aluminum beverage container. Since the additional payments for the beverage containers that this bill would make subject to the act would be deposited in a continuously appropriated fund, the bill would make an appropriation. The bill would also impose a state-mandated local program by creating new crimes relating to the regulation of beverage containers. (2) Existing law requires the invoice or other form of accounting of a transaction submitted by a beverage distributor to a dealer to separately identify the amount of any redemption payment imposed on beverage containers and prohibits that identification from combining or including the gross wholesale price with the redemption payment, except as specified for distributors of beer and malt beverages and wine or distilled spirit coolers. This bill would additionally exempt distributors of wine sold in aluminum beverage containers and distributors of distilled spirits sold in aluminum beverage containers from those requirements. (3) Existing law provides, with regard to the sale of beer and other malt beverages or wine and distilled spirits cooler beverages, that any amount of redemption payment imposed is subject to a specified provision of the Alcoholic Beverage Control Act, a violation of which is a crime. This bill would additionally subject any amount of redemption payment imposed on wine sold in an aluminum beverage container or distilled spirits sold in an aluminum beverage container to that provision of the Alcoholic Beverage Control Act. The bill would thereby impose a state-mandated local program by creating new crimes under the Alcoholic Beverage Control Act. (4) The California Constitution requires the state to reimburse local agencies and school districts for certain costs mandated by the state. Statutory provisions establish procedures for making that reimbursement. This bill would provide that no reimbursement is required by this act for a specified reason.