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PAST YEARS' LEGISLATION SUMMARIES

2023 Assembly Bills

AB 416
Version: 10/23/23
Status: SIGNED INTO LAW
Summary: Sale of shochu.
Would allow for shochu, a 24% ABV Japanese fermented rice liquor that is similar to soju, to be sold by any licensee already eligible to sell wine. (Soju already has this privilege.)
Author(s): Muratsuchi (D-Torrance)
AJ Position: OPPOSE – The issue is not so much that it is somehow dangerous to stock shochu in wine shops, but not so with soju. The issue is that soju never should've been afforded this privilege, and extending it to shochu begins a process of overturning much of the intent behind alcoholic product categories--indeed, many on-sale licensees use soju as a mixed drink spirit base in lieu of vodka, rather than serving it by the glass like wine. Limiting access is intended to limit harm, and we should make the limits simple and bright-line: these products are stronger than most wines, often served differently than wines, made differently than wines, and therefore should not be considered wines.
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AB 546
Version: 10/8/23
Status: SIGNED INTO LAW
Summary: Tied-house restrictions.
Tightens and clarifies restrictions on gifts from manufacturers and wholesalers to retailers, defining credits and rebates as gifts, and cleaning up the language to cover all alcoholic beverages.
Author(s): Villapudua (D-Stockton)
AJ Position: SUPPORT - any opening through which manufacturers can gift to retailers becomes an opportunity for, essentially, pay-to-play. By preventing industry actors from becoming more "hands-on," this bill would delay consolidation and keep the market diversified--practically speaking, allowing more space for more expensive product, reduce harm.
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AB 697
Version: 5/18/23
Status: DEAD
Summary: Drug court success incentives pilot program.
Allows courts in some counties, when ordering a defendant to drug treatment diversion programs, to also provide an incentive payment of up to $500 per month to reduce dropping out or recidivism.
Author(s): Davies (R-San Juan Capistrano)
AJ Position: SUPPORT - Individuals mandated to drug treatment are likely to be extremely low income, creating substantial issues around completing treatment and retaining sobriety post-treatment. The $500 payment not only broadly incentivizes adherence, it may offset some of the crippling quality-of-life concerns that make recovery extraordinarily difficult for individuals in extreme poverty.
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AB 840
Version: 10/7/23
Status: SIGNED INTO LAW
Summary: Tied-house exceptions: advertising: California State University campuses.
Would suspend tied-house restrictions on alcohol advertising in the stadiums and other public facilities of every Cal State campus.
Author(s): Addis (D-San Luis Obispo/Monterey); coauthors Petri-Norris (D-Laguna Beach) and McCarty (D-Sacramento)
AJ Position: OPPOSE - While these kinds of tied-house exemptions are approved in an ad hoc manner, this bill would sweepingly supplant all of the tied house protections across and enormous swath of educational facilities.  We cannot emphasize this enough: at 4-year colleges, many to most attendees are under the legal drinking age. This contrasts even with professional sports stadiums, where youth form a large portion of the audience but you cannot assume the very purpose of the establishment is to house them. Add to this the fact that alcohol is a major preventable factor in deaths among young adults, and this is one area where the three-tier restrictions should be defended at all costs--and not wiped away in a casual, virtually unaccountable manner.
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AB 929
Version: 5/10/23
Status: DEAD
Summary: Alcoholic beverage licenses: off-sale privileges: airports.
Would permit on-sale alcohol outlets--bars and restaurants--in airports to sell to-go cups of alcohol to patrons.
Author(s): Villapudua (D-Stockton)
AJ Position: OPPOSE - This bill would increase the likelihood that airline patrons are intoxicated, expand the places in which these intoxicated customers could be found, and ease efforts to sneak already-open alcohol containers onto flights. The harms are clear: more disruption before and on flights, more hostile encounters with flight and service staff, and less responsibility or oversight for intoxicated patrons by these licensees. In addition, this would make airline terminals considerably less welcoming to individuals in recovery, and put those traveling with children in potentially uncomfortable situations. Considering the last few years have already seen a massive uptick in violent customer behavior, this could not be a more ill-founded concept.
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AB 1013
Version: 10/7/23
Status: SIGNED INTO LAW
Summary: On-sale general public premises: drug testing devices.
Would require bars and restaurants to stock, publicize, and offer at no more than a nominal markup devices for testing adulterants in alcoholic beverages.
Author(s): Lowenthal (D-Long Beach)
AJ Position: SUPPORT - Giving patrons the option to test for "date rape" drugs (a misnomer--drugs used to compel sex are just rape drugs) not only protects bargoers, it has deterrent potential that may reduce incidences of drink-spiking.
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AB 1088
Version: 10/13/23
Status: SIGNED INTO LAW
Summary: Licensed craft distillers: direct shipping.
A one-year extension of the pandemic-era rule allowing craft distillers to ship products via common carrier (UPS and FedEx).
Author(s): Rubio (D-West Covina)
AJ Position: OPPOSE - Anywhere, anytime alcohol provision is dangerous, and in fact has been capped by law for a century. It is no safer to have a morning bottle of whiskey dropped on your doorstep now than it was in 1970. UPS and FedEx drivers are not obligated to receive responsible sales training, and even if they were, the time-constrained nature of those jobs leaves them in no position to verify age and nonintoxication. Moreover, this bill allows for the shipping of a truly astonishing quantity of distilled spirits to any given individual: 2.25 liters per day, or a handle plus a 750 ml. bottle. This is, for all intents and purposes, a fatal quantity of alcohol.
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AB 1130
Version: 6/29/23
Status: SIGNED INTO LAW
Summary: Substance use disorder.
Officially removes the term "addict" from all regulations and guidelines surrounding state-run prevention, treatment, and recovery services, replacing it with "person with substance use disorder".
Author(s): Berman (D-Menlo Park)
AJ Position: SUPPORT - Even within the movement towards person-centered language, "addict" is notably ripe for retirement. The term has long held a derogatory edge, and with the current framing of substance abuse disorders, "addiction" itself no longer has a clear medical definition.
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AB 1217
Version: 10/8/23
Status: SIGNED INTO LAW
Summary: Business pandemic relief.
Continues the COVID-19-era alcohol deregulatory measures, particularly the expanded footprints of bars and restaurants, until July 2026.
Author(s): Gabriel (D-Los Angeles)
AJ Position: OPPOSE - The expanded footprints gave essentially every interested on-sale alcohol a substantial boost to customer capacity. In a situation like this, one of two things happen: either more people attend these bar and restaurants, resulting in more alcohol-related harm and more neighborhood disruption, or there is no additional attendance, and no economic benefit for bars and restaurants.  Both cases are obvious arguments for ending the program, which was never intended to raise capacity, only to allow people to socially distance during a time of contagion. The reports of ongoing conflicts between residents and businesses, and the periodic destruction of parklets by shoddy design or dangerous driving, lend urgency to the call to terminate the program.
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AB 1294
Version: 10/8/23
Status: SIGNED INTO LAW
Summary: Tied-house restrictions: advertising exceptions: County of Kern > Kings.
Allows alcohol advertising at an artificial wave pool in Kings County that also has a bar.  Importantly, this pool creates surfable waves and will be the site for televised competitions.
Author(s): Boerner Horvath (D-Carlsbad); coauthor Mathis (R-Porterville)
AJ Position: OPPOSE - This is just a recapitulation of the need to Free Our Sports. As best we can tell, the express purpose of this exemption is for advertisers for their events, events which will draw a substantial underage audience. There are a million other products that would eagerly sponsor an extreme sports event, and the lack of an alcohol sponsorship would hardly be a death sentence.
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AB 1551
Version: 5/18/23
Status: DEAD
Summary: Vehicular manslaughter while intoxicated.
Grants access to the state Restitution Fund to any children whose parent(s) died as the result of an intoxicated driving event.
Author(s): Gipson (D-Carson)
AJ Position: SUPPORT IF AMENDED - The original, MADD-supported draft required the restitution to also be paid by the intoxicated driver found guilty of the killings.  That language was stripped out. While Alcohol Justice is cautious of supporting primarily punitive bills, the language in this one was restorative in nature, creating a deterrent that also helped rectify the alcohol-related crime. If a restorative deterrent is reintegrated into this bill, then Alcohol Justice will reinstate its support.
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AB 1668
Version: 9/30/23
Status: DEAD
Summary: Alcoholic beverages: licenses: County of Placer.
Would grant 10 additional full-bar licenses for restaurants in Placer County.
Author(s): Patterns (R-Granite Bay)
AJ Position: OPPOSE - When these additional licenses are requested legislatively, it means that the county has exceeded the statutory ratio of licenses to population. Controlling overconcentration is one the foundational elements of safe alcohol sales, as the density of establishments in and of itself can be associated with increased crime and worsened health outcomes in nearby communities. What's more, once granted, it is all but impossible to retire this licenses again, even if harm rises.  And in case you have not been paying attention, harm has risen dramatically over the past three years.
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AB 1704
Version: 10/13/23
Status: SIGNED INTO LAW
Summary: Alcoholic beverage licenses.
A mixed bag of licensing tweaks. First, it would allow winegrowers who create spirits of wine--sherries, brandies, and the like--to then sell those products to distilled spirits manufacturers. Second, it would require the Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control to broadcast via video the drawings for new or relocated licenses when they are made available. Third, it would change eligibility for the brewpub-to-restaurant-license conversions authorized in the previous session from being defined by the holder of the license to being defined by the status of the license itself, whether or not it had been transferred.
Author(s): Santiago (D-Los Angeles)
AJ Position: WATCH - There's always a concern when itty bitty regulatory tweaks add up in a single bill. However, for the most part, these changes do not seem to increase the potential for harm. Expanded cross-manufacturer sales is worth monitoring in the future, as it may allow for stealth expansion and, essentially, "alcohol laundering."
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2023 Senate Bills

SB 76
Version: 9/21/23
Status: SIGNED INTO LAW
Summary: Alcoholic beverages: music venue license: entertainment zones: consumption.
AMENDED. Would allow San Francisco to established "party zones," where alcohol can be bought from a bar and consumed on the street, during designated specialle vents. ORIGINAL SUMMARY: Would allow cities to establish "party zones," where alcohol can be brought from a bar and consumed on the street.
Author(s): Wiener (D-San Francisco)
AJ Position: OPPOSE - One of the few significant widespread protective alcohol policies California has adopted in the past decade was responsible beverage service training. This training was intended to educate and equip bar staff with skills that would allow them to identify, cut off, and de-escalate confrontational situations with people who have been drinking. The entire party zone concept cuts off RBS training at the knees. It also makes accountability for dangerous service nearly impossible, and while recent revision do insist on some method to identify underage drinkers, it calls for neither security nor police within these zones, making it unclear who would actually eject underage drinkers and how these drinkers (or any other problem individuals) could be kept away. More broadly, the areas in the United States with these kinds of policies--think the Las Vegas Strip, or Bourbon St. in New Orleans--end up experiencing tremendous amounts of harm and violence, much of it alcohol-related. There is no city in California that would benefit from similar chaos engines.
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SB 247
Version: 9/7/23
Status: SIGNED INTO LAW
Summary: Alcoholic beverages: licensing exemptions: barbering and cosmetology services.
Clarifies that the "Dry Bar Bill," which allowed salons and barbershops to give alcohol to patrons, applies to all establishments regulated by the State Board of Barbering and Cosmetology.
Author(s): Wilk (R-Santa Clarita)
AJ Position: WATCH - Make no mistake, the Dry Bar Bill is a mess, allowing alcohol service at (according to the authors) 50,000 establishments that were not under ABC oversight. In fact, as best we can tell, there remains no disciplinary mechanism against Dry Bar Bill beneficiaries who violate the terms of the legislation. It triggered a wave of bills insisting alcohol service was essential to art classes, galleries, pedicabs, and more. That said, it is difficult to tell whether this clarification will restrict the number of stores able to deliver alcohol (because it boxes out any service not explicitly under license from the Board) or expand it (owing to the vagary of "beauty salon service"). For now, we watch.
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SB 269
Version: 9/21/23
Status: SIGNED INTO LAW
Summary: Alcoholic beverages: licensed premises: retail sales and consumption.
Allows facilities that are combined distilleries-wineries to serve their products in the same space.
Author(s): Laird (D-Santa Cruz)
AJ Position: WATCH - This enables the continued consolidation of alcohol products and the delegitimization of the three-tier structure, but it is already legal for combined wineries/breweries to sell products in the same place. The fundamental issue is that these combined facilities exist at all, not that they are able to sell their products without an arbitrary and functionless divider between them.
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SB 277
Version: 6/9/23
Status: DEAD
Summary: Off-sale beer and wine licenses: low alcohol-by-volume spirits beverages.
Allows cocktails-in-a-can, which are made with distilled spirits, to be sold in stores with a beer-and-wine-only off-sale license.
Author(s): Dodd (D-Napa)
AJ Position: OPPOSE - This would not only breach the entire point of a beer-and-wine license--to have the lowest ABV and lowest binge risk products the most available--but it would vastly increase the assortment of alcopops in the stores most frequented by youth. The allowable products get up to 10% ABV at 16 oz., which is essentially three standard drinks of alcohol. These "cocktails-in-a-can" are universally heavily sweetened and flavored, masking the taste of alcohol and making them functionally indistinguishable from Four Loko, Bud-a-Ritas, Buzz Ballz, and other low-cost, youth-targeted malt beverage products. In fact, with the current trend for branding these with identifiable soda logos makes these likely even riskier than the last generation of alcopops. Considering the fact that corner stores--the most common recipients of a beer-and-wine license--are the most often frequented type of store by youth, this is a stupidly reckless bill that helps the most cynical and contemptuous alcohol producers.
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AB 388
Version: 8/23/23
Status: SIGNED INTO LAW
Summary: Alcoholic Beverage Tax: beer manufacturer returns and schedule.
Provides a technical modification to the retail tax return process making it easier for beer manufacturers to set price schedules.
Author(s): Archuleta (D-Pico Rivera)
AJ Position: WATCH - This is serious insider baseball.  Distributors are required to have set prices and cannot haggle with each retailers individually. By encouraging transparency in beer manufacturer tax returns, it gives manufacturers richer information by which to set those prices. Alcohol Justice does not see this affecting levels of consumption or industry consolidation.
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SB 392
Version: 10/8/23
Status: SIGNED INTO LAW
Summary: Tied-house restrictions: advertising exceptions: City of Inglewood.
Allows the new Major League Soccer stadium (we think) in Inglewood to receive advertising money even though they also have an alcohol license.
Author(s): Bradford (D-Garden) and McKinnor (D-Inglewood)
AJ Position: OPPOSE - The process of chipping away at the three tiers continues.  Aside from the fact that research clearly ties alcohol service at sporting events to incidents of criminal violence and other disruption, sporting events also attract disproportionately large youth audiences. This makes them a venue for imprinting marketing on the youngest attendees while normalizing the worst consequences of consumption.
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SB 430
Version: 8/16/23
Status: DEAD
Summary: Tied-house exceptions: advertising: common parent company.
Allows Amazon, the owner of a large retail alcohol sales arm, to receive money for advertising from alcohol manufacturers for their streaming broadcasts of Monday Night Football.
Author(s): Dodd (D-Napa)
AJ Position: OPPOSE - The legislaure loves to nickel-and-dime away the three-tier system, but this is egregious. The various stadium and concert venue exemptions are meant to raise money in specific, narrow situations. This opens the door for a massive, multibillion-dollar, vertically integrated company to flood its broadcast channels with advertisements for the alcohol that it will then stock in its brick-and-mortar (and, if they get their way, online) stores. This is the situation that three-tier laws were expressly intended to prevent, and self-evidently accelerates the process by which alcohol sales in California become cheap, centralized, and relentlessly pushed on all residents of all ages.
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SB 495
Version: 6/9/23
Status: DEAD
Summary: Alcoholic beverages: deliveries: off-sale retail licenses and consumer delivery service permits.
The newest iteration of the bills attempting to legalize and formalize all forms of alcohol delivery via TNC (e.g., GrubHub, Uber, Doordash, etc.).
Author(s): Rubio (D-West Covina)
AJ Position: OPPOSE - Alcohol home delivery instantly proved a popular method for underage customers to obtain alcohol when it was instituted as an emergency measure. Without training and under perverse incentives from TNCs to complete illegal deliveries or else receive a job-ending bad rating, drivers were inclined to ignore the law entirely.  ABC sting rates of delivery drivers started high and remain high to this day. Add to this the fact that simply introducing alcohol into every casual transaction (such as ordering out) lays the groundwork for harmful or lethal drinking patterns. We saw this during lockdown, and the time is nigh to roll it back, not codify it.  All that said, if TNC delivery were to be legalized, doing so in a manner that creates large penalties for violations, that protects the drivers, that mandates a form of responsible service training, and that is overseeable by ABC in such a way that a persistently negligent licensee can lose their right to deliver alcohol, should be obligatory. This bill seems to do so. This does not change the fact that mindful consumption is essential to ensuring safe sales, and widespread alcohol delivery overtly undermines this. For that reason, Alcohol Justice remains opposed.
Position Letters:


SB 498
Version: 10/8/23
Status: SIGNED INTO LAW
Summary: Alcoholic beverage control: licenses: violations.
Strengthens ABC's abilities to assess penalties and consider the consequences of illegal alcohol sales when doing so.
Author(s): Gonzalez (D-Long Beach)
AJ Position: SUPPORT - As industry revenues have soared, ABC's ability to levy fines have remained statutorily frozen. This bill would double the amount of money ABC can demand in an offer in compromise (cash in lieu of license suspension). Moreover, it gives ABC the ability to impose harsher consequences if a sale to a minor or obviously intoxicated person resulted in serious injury or death to that person, or on account of that person. By bringing these stronger enforcement measures into play, this reduces the probability that a reckless retailer will simply buy off the department, as well as giving ABC a functional budgetary increase since fines are usually paid right back into the Department. 
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SB 787
Version: 7/21/23
Status: SIGNED INTO LAW
Summary: Number of licensed premises: County of Nevada.
Would allow Nevada County to distribute new on-sale alcohol licenses despite the existence of statutory overconcentration.
Author(s): Dahl (R-Redding)
AJ Position: OPPOSE - Overconcetration is intended to be a flag that the current number of alcohol outlets is nearing the point where it is driving additional death and injury from alcohol-related harms. Unfortunately, this bill--like so many, every session--treats it as an indication that lawmakers need to aggressively pack in more bars. Since these licenses are extraordinarily difficult for ABC to retract and remove from circulation, bills like this perpetuate an endless ratchet of overconsumption.
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SB 788
Version: 8/31/23
Status: SIGNED INTO LAW
Summary: Beer manufacturers: cider and perry.
Allows craft brewers to also make fermented fruit-based carbonated beverages, an ability that, ironically, megaproducers already have.
Author(s): Ashby (D-Sacramento) and Aguiar-Curry (D-Winters)
AJ Position: WATCH - Unfortunately, the company that could do the most harm with this--ABI--was granted this privilege about a decade ago. Considering that, and the fact that cider remains a niche product and not as relentlessly advertised to youth as alcopops and cocktails in a can are, Alcohol Justice is only watching this bill for the time being.
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SB 844
Version: 9/30/23
Status: SIGNED INTO LAW
Summary: Alcoholic beverage control: licenses.
License-holders are permitted to carry over their existing license to a newly constructed location. This bill would require them to post notice (similar to a new license application) while the construction and transfer proceeds.
Author(s): Rubio (D-West Covina)
AJ Position: SUPPORT - Neighborhood transparency is always a net good, even if we worry this posting would get lost in the flurry of other public notice postings required with much new construction.
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We are now including in the bill list both the Alcohol Justice (AJ) position on bills as well as the position of California Alcohol Policy Alliance (CAPA) on select bills of concern to the statewide coalition.

Archived Legislative Summaries (Prior Sessions)

COMPLETE LEGISLATIVE SUMMARIES 2022 CA Complete Legislative Summary 2021 CA Complete Legislative Summary 2019-2020 CA Complete Legislative Summary 2018 CA Complete Legislative Summary 2017 CA Complete Legislative Summary 2016 CA Complete Legislative Summary 2015 CA Complete Legislative Summary 2014 CA Complete Legislative Summary 2013 CA Complete Legislative Summary

CAPA SUMMARIES    2019-2020 CAPA Summary    2018 CAPA Summary    2017 CAPA Summary