VETO SB 793 - Bars Are Not Teen-Friendly

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Gov. Newsom - VETO SB 793! Youth don't belong in bars!

SB 793 is another misguided alcohol-related bill from Sen. Scott Wiener (D-San Francisco). It creates a new alcohol license type for bars and clubs that present live music to encourage underage youth patrons.

Unfortunately it ignores data that shows environmental alcohol sales among underage and young adults are associated with increased alcohol-related harms and hospitalization, including physical assault and sexual assault. Moreover, even background alcohol advertising is shown to have a greater impact on youth desire to drink when tied to favored teams, activities... and bands.

Yes the bill will increase business for music venues, but at the expense of the health and safety of underage patrons. The bill lacks mandatory on-site security or any form of identifying underage people who will easily procure and consume alcohol among older patrons. Rather than bow to Big Alcohol's demands that its products be present at every event, we should deliver resources to make sure alcohol-free all-ages venues are commercially viable even against competition from bars and festivals.

SB 793 is a bad deal for California youth who will be victimized if this bill is allowed to become law. There are safer ways to create all-age music enjoyment than creating a new alcohol license type. Please VETO SB 793.

Enter your information below to TELL GOVERNOR NEWSOM to VETO SB 793, or TEXT "JUSTICE" to 313131.

TAKE ACTION to STOP SB 620 - No Direct to Consumer Shipments in CA

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SB 620 (Allen) would make direct-to-consumer (DTC) shipping of distilled spirits and beer permanently legal in California, a major threat to public health and safety.

It creates a dangerous policy by:

• Fundamentally undermining the three-tier system, allowing all producers to also be distributors and retailers.
• Promoting DTC delivery of cheap, mass-market distilled spirits and beer by megacorporations.
• Failing in efforts to promote small, local producers over large, out-of-state ones.
• Incentivizing producers to deliver booze to peoples' doors in quantities that exceed any measure of "responsible" drinking.
• Making responsible beverage service difficult or impossible, and putting it on the shoulders of delivery drivers who are untrained and pressured to move on to the next doorstep.
• Stripping California of state control over its own alcohol market and sparking a race to the regulatory bottom.
• Making the state choose between gutting union jobs or increasing per capita consumption. (Or both.)

This increase in access to consumers, quantities consumed, and freedom from accountability comes at a time when alcohol harm is rapidly increasing in California. Damage from alcohol has been steadily rising for 20 years. Diagnoses of alcohol use disorder increased 50% from 2002 to 2012, and this has resulted in an alarming rise in alcohol-related deaths. Between 1999 and 2017, the raw number of alcohol deaths doubled, accounting for a 50% increase in death rate. This is not the result of long-term alcohol abuse; mortality rates among 25 to 34 year-olds saw annual increases between 4.6% and a staggering 12%. The annual rate of death from cirrhosis of the liver increased 10.5% between 2009 and 2016 in this same age group.

With these numbers in mind, efforts to radically expand alcohol markets have costs that far outweigh any perceived local economic benefit, even assuming that said benefit is not subsumed by multinational megaproducers. Tell your legislators to vote NO ON SB 620.

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Call the Assembly TODAY about the 4 A.M. Bar Bill! UPDATE: SB 930 scheduled for vote on 8/24

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Get on the Phone Now and Tell the CA Assembly: NO ON SB 930

Reducing Alcohol-Related Harm is More Important Than Increasing Alcohol Sales

SB 930 is scheduled to go up for a vote on WEDNESDAY 8/24 on the floor of the Assembly. It is critical that Assemblymembers hear from you—IN PERSON—ASAP.

Please make a few calls for public health and safety! Tell the Assembly to VOTE NO on any extension of alcohol selling hours, they will only increase profits for businesses while harming more people in early morning commute times in communities surrounding the "pilot project" test cities. Those communities will have no "local control" and no part of the economic benefits that the bars and clubs selling the booze will have, just the costs of cleaning up the messes and burying the dead.

Q: Who do I call?

Call any Assemblymember from the list below. These Assemblymembers have not yet committed to voting NO ON SB 930. Our electeds respond the most strongly to people who take the time to speak with their staff directly.

Q: What do I say?

Be direct and forceful. We suggest the following:

"Hello, my name is [     FULL NAME       ].

I am a resident of [    CITY    ], calling as a concerned citizen to express my opposition to SB 930.

It will increase the harms and costs to the state, and those harms and costs won't stay limited to just the participating cities. I strongly oppose the bill and am urging the member to vote NO.  Thank you."

NOTE: If you are talking to the Assemblymember from the place that you live, make sure they know that. To see who your Assemblymember is, enter your address here.

UNDECIDED ASSEMBLY MEMBERS

Arambula, Joaquin                              916-319-2031

Bauer-Kahan, Rebecca                       916-319-2016

Berman, Marc                                     916-319-2024

Boerner Horvath, Tasha                      916-319-2076

Calderon, Lisa                                     916-319-2057

Cervantes, Sabrina                             916-319-2060

Cooley, Ken                                        916-319-2008

Cunningham, Jordan                          916-319-2035

Daly, Tom                                            916-319-2069

Friedman, Laura                                  916-319-2043

Gabriel, Jesse                                     916-319-2045

Gipson, Mike A.                                  916-319-2064

Grayson, Timothy S.                           916-319-2014

Irwin, Jacqui                                       916-319-2044

Levine, Marc                                       916-319-2010

Maienschein, Brian                             916-319-2077

McCarty, Kevin                                   916-319-2007

Mullin, Kevin                                       916-319-2022

Muratsuchi, Al                                     916-319-2066

Nazarian, Adrin                                   916-319-2046

O’Donnell, Patrick                               916-319-2070

Patterson, Jim                                     916-319-2023

Petrie-Norris, Cottie                            916-319-2074

Quirk-Silva, Sharon                             916-319-2065

Ramos, James C.                               916-319-2040

Reyes, Eloise Gómez                          916-319-2047

Rivas, Luz M.                                       916-319-2039

Rodriguez, Freddie                              916-319-2052

Salas, Jr., Rudy                                    916-319-2032

Wood, Jim                                            916-319-2002

Tell Gov. Newsom: California Communities Lose When the Booze is Loose

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Under the dubious guise of “regulatory relief,” long-standing, evidence-based California alcohol policies critical to public health and safety have been rolled back during the COVID-19 crisis by the California Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control.

The California Alcohol Policy Alliance (CAPA) is a coalition of diverse organizations and communities throughout California united to protect health and safety, and prevent alcohol-related harm. CAPA believes Governor Newsom's COVID-19 response has failed by making alcohol "essential".

TAKE ACTION now to respectfully urge the Governor to carefully reexamine the state's relationship to alcohol during this pandemic, and make public health and safety "essential" by doing the following:

• Reinstate ABC regulations that prevent alcohol takeout and delivery
• Address the disproportionate increase in alcohol harms to communities of color
• Increase alcohol taxes and allocate the additional funds to treatment and prevention
• Retire outdated/unused alcohol licenses
• Create statewide standard alcohol policy regulations within the Covid-19 response

Californians do not need encouragement to consume more alcohol at this time. The state already suffers over $34 billion in annual alcohol-related harm, with over 10,500 deaths and hundreds of thousands of injuries requiring hospital visits.

In addition, alcohol weakens immune systems, making it harder to fight off Covid-19. Even individuals who may not have a substance use disorder but are drinking more during the pandemic are at risk. Drunk driving, alcohol-related violence, domestic abuse, financial problems, the risk for liver disease, breast cancer, depression, stroke and heart attack will all increase with excessive drinking.

Please take action to make public health and safety a priority, not alcohol industry jobs and profits.