Weekly Writers Round-Up: Craft Breweries, Scooters, and North Korea
Another government shutdown threatens to put craft breweries on ice by Christie Pesavento (Summer 2017) in the Washington Times
When the government shut down last December, Americans began to discover just how far the feds’ reach had stretched. From air travel and national park visits to homebuying and mail delivery, people were left wondering how the shutdown would affect them.
One place they may not have expected to find government fingerprints? Craft breweries. And yet during the 2018-19 shutdown, the Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau (TTB) — the agency charged with approving all beer, wine and spirit labels before they can be sold across state lines — shuttered its label review operation. As a result, customers eager to try new brews were left wanting, and brewers hoping to sell their latest concoctions out of state were forced to sit on thousands of dollars’ worth of perishable products while the budgetary stalemate lumbered on. Smaller breweries, whose business depends on near-constant innovation, were especially hard hit…
