TRENTON – An Assembly panel approved a four-bill package sponsored by Assemblyman Bob Andrzejczak to spur the continued growth of New Jersey’s winery industry.
“The wine industry has begun to yield tremendous benefits for our state, particularly South Jersey,” said Andrzejczak (D-Cape May/Atlantic/Cumberland). “But in order to help us become truly competitive with more established states, we need to work with our wineries to make our laws more effective for them.”
New Jersey ranks 10th in the nation in wine production with more than 1.6 million gallons produced in 2012. In 2013, the last year for which data is available, wineries supported thousands of jobs, generated close to $40 million in revenues for the state, and consistently draw 100,000 tourists to New Jersey every year.
Cumulatively, the four-bill package is designed to spur continued growth by amending existing laws and regulations pertaining to New Jersey’s wineries to:
- A-4948: Clarify that the responsibility for ensuring any buyer of alcohol is at least 21 years of age or older rests on the retail outlet and its employees, and not the winery;
- A-4949: Authorize a temporary waiver to the requirement that farm wineries use at least 51 percent of grapes or fruit grown in New Jersey during the first five years of the winery’s inception while operations are getting off the ground;
- A-4950: Make the law governing winery salesrooms less cumbersome by requiring applications for winery salesrooms to be processed within 90 days, permitting wineries to vary certain fees associated with the salesrooms, and allowing wineries to provide samples of wine and sell wine in any area of a salesroom; and
- A-4951: Ease the current monthly requirement that alcohol licensees file a current price list with the ABC and instead require a price list to be filed prior to the initial sale of alcohol and subsequently only when the price of the alcoholic beverages changes.
The bills were approved by the Assembly Regulatory Oversight Committee.
