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House approves broad alcohol-licensing changes and new license types in SB314
Summary
The House passed First Substitute Senate Bill 314 as amended (69-4), a comprehensive package of alcohol-license reforms including increased restaurant quotas, new license categories, higher fees to fund enforcement and expanded ID-scanning requirements for taverns and bars.
The Utah House approved a broad revision of state alcohol licensing on March 8 when members passed First Substitute Senate Bill 314 as amended by a 69-4 vote.
Representative Hughes, the House sponsor, described the bill as the product of extensive stakeholder work beginning in April 2010 with groups including the Utah Restaurant Association, Utah Hotel-Motel Association, beer wholesalers, Mothers Against Drunk Driving and ecclesiastical leaders. The package increases quotas for restaurant licenses, ties funding for additional enforcement officers to license increases, raises certain fees for the first time since 2003 and creates new license categories such as a "beer-only restaurant" license with no quota.
The bill also brings taverns under the same electronic-identification verification requirements now used by bars and social clubs, authorizes certain reception-center and recreational-facility licenses, permits single-drink room service under limited circumstances, and strengthens conflicts-of-interest and Open Meetings Act provisions for the Department of Alcohol and Beverage Control. Representative Hughes said the measure is a compromised product "where no one's perfect" but one supported by participating stakeholders.
A technical amendment was debated and adopted on the floor to clarify wording (deleting "who is seated" and replacing it with "at a seated event") to ensure the bill would not inadvertently prohibit receptions that precede dinners. Representative Lipak and others explained that the change was intended to preserve receptions and common hospitality uses.
After floor debate and the amendment vote, the reading clerk announced that First Substitute SB314 as amended "passes this body" and will be returned to the Senate; the tally recorded on the floor was 69 yes votes and 4 no votes.
Next steps: the House returned the amended bill to the Senate for consideration and signature, and any administrative or enforcement rules implementing the new licensing provisions will be developed by affected agencies.
