If you have been following along long enough you have probably read our reporting on what is known as “HB 2513”. The back and forth may be a bit confusing, so we thought we would break it down to better understand the impact this has on Pennsylvania craft breweries as well as the timeline of events.
House Bill 2513 is a bill in the Pennsylvania state government that was proposed to increase capacity for breweries (as well as restaurants/ taverns) to a minimum of 50% (up from the current 25%) and would allow them to go beyond that if their premises allows while complying with social distancing, masks, and other safety precautions recommended by the CDC and PA Department of Health. The bill also removes the food requirement and prohibition against bar service (breweries cannot even hand a drink over a bar).
The bill was originally passed on September 25th with 72% of the House and 88% of the Senate in support. For reference; each chamber only required 67% for the bill to be supported.
You can see how the votes played out here.
Once the bill was passed by the House and Senate it was moved to Governor Tom Wolf to either be signed into law or vetoed. And on October 16th the Governer vetoed the proposed bill.
The bill was then sent back to the House for a re-vote. If the bill received a two-thirds vote the veto would be overridden and the bill would become law. On October 21st the bill did not receive the two-thirds votes. Specifically, the bill failed, due to twelve of the PA state legislature members changing their original vote.
As of this writing, there have been no new updates. The most likely scenario is that the bill is amended to allow for easier passage into law. We will continue to update the timeline of events as more information becomes available.
