Legislative Issues

Washington State’s Office of Tourism closed it’s doors in 2011. Since then, our state is the only one in the country that has no statewide tourism marketing entity. Tourism dollars are absolutely critical to the success of our wine industry and often times our wineries are the reason tourists decide to travel to our state and spend their money at hotels, restaurants, rental cars, etc.

WWI has been a part of leading this effort for the past three years and will continue being vocal about the need to reignite our statewide tourism marketing to the country and world.

SB 5251:
• Creates a private/public partnership that will reignite our statewide tourism marketing
• The funding mechanism is a 2-to-1 private-to-public match. If the bill is adopted as currently written, in the next three years our tourism budget be as strong as $15 million per biennium
• Creates a new board of directors to collectively lead on Washington State’s tourism marketing decisions
• The bill has specific language that requires this new board to focus tourism marketing on rural economies, where many of our wineries are located

Washington State wineries operate in all three tiers (manufacturing, distributing and retailing) and must comply with all applicable laws while acting as retailers, as distributors, or as manufacturers unless specifically exempted. All three of these activities are tied to the winery license itself and any violations are levied against the full license, which means the LCB has the power to shut down your wholesale and production activity for the entire duration of a violation from a winery’s retail portion of their business. WWI learned about this concern this past fall while speaking with the Liquor and Cannabis Board as well as our partners in the Washington beer and spirits industries. We then teamed up to write legislation for the 2018 session to fix this problem and create certainty moving forward that no winery, brewery, or distillery will experience a complete and total business shutdown for having a violation on the retail side of their business.

HB 2517:
• Defines retailing activities where manufacturers are interfacing with the public as “ancillary activities”
• Charges the Liquor & Cannabis Board with adopting a penalty schedule for violations incurred while performing ancillary activities
• Penalties may not include the suspension or revocation of the winery license
• The Liquor & Cannabis Board would still maintain the ability levy significant penalties, suspend interactions with the public when appropriate and protect the public interest

Through a series of audits, a discovery was made that alcohol manufacturers are considered “food” for the purposes of a Washington State Department of Agriculture (WSDA) food storage warehouse license. The license costs $200/annually and includes inspection of the warehouse to ensure proper sanitation is taking place to protect the food from any potential harm to the consumer.

WWI contacted WSDA and, through a series of discussions, explained why alcohol storage does not pose a risk to the consumer and therefore does not belong under this license. WSDA agreed that the warehousing of product produced by alcohol manufacturers does not pose a risk and helped draft legislation to remove our industries from the license and inspection requirement.

HB 2699:
• Exempts alcohol manufacturers and distributers licensed under RCW 66.24 from the WSDA issued food storage warehouse license
• Removes a $200 annual cost on these business that is agreed between WSDA and the industry to not be necessary
• States that the exemption only applies if alcohol is the only product being stored in the warehouse