Legislative Testimony: LB900, Change provisions relating to microdistilleries to allow up to five physical locations

Chairman Briese and members of the committee, my name is Laura Ebke, and I am the senior fellow at the Platte Institute, here in support of LB900 and thank Senator Lowe for introducing it.

At Platte, we have long had the goal of encouraging individuals, entrepreneurs and small businesses as they’ve worked to grow our state’s economy. Many of our efforts have been focused on pointing out the barriers that government sometimes erects which hinders growth and opportunity.

We all know that craft breweries have popped up all over Nebraska in the last decade or so. Many of those businesses built up a loyal following, and in 2016, this Legislature passed LB1105 which expanded the number of locations—tasting rooms, if you will—that a craft brewery could operate under one liquor license–to five locations.

Today, micro-distilleries are growing in number around the state—entrepreneurial small businesses that are trying to provide products and services that their fellow Nebraskans desire.

This bill is parallel to 2016’s LB1105 for craft brewers, in that it would simply apply the same rules regarding up to five separate physical locations for the micro-distillery.

This is a reasonable modification to statute found in Chapter 53, which allows these small businesses to expand their offerings modestly, in different locations.

We encourage the advancement of LB900 to General File, or that it be made part of a larger committee priority bill.