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MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — Miller, Coors and other popular beers may
disappear from Minnesota stores and bars within days because
brewing giant MillerCoors lacks the proper licenses due to the
state’s government shutdown.
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MillerCoors has 39 “brand label registrations” with the state that
expired last month, and the employees who process renewals were
laid off when state government shut down July 1 in a budget
dispute, Doug Neville, a spokesman for the Department of Public
Safety, said Wednesday.
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State alcohol enforcement officials who remain on the job recently
told officials with Chicago-based MillerCoors LLC that they need to
come up with a plan soon for pulling their products he
said.
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“I think we’re looking at days instead of weeks before some action
needs to be taken but I don’t have an exact date,” Neville
said.
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MillerCoors spokesman Julian Green said the brewer still hopes to
resolve the dispute through discussions with state alcohol
regulators, but didn’t rule out legal action.
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“With 39 brands at stake in one of our largest markets in the
country, during one of the highest selling periods in the summer,
we don’t take our business of ensuring proper state licenses
lightly,” Green said. “Especially when it impacts the livelihoods
of our distributors and retailers, and ultimately impacts our
consumers who can’t buy our brands.”
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The affected brands include not only the Miller and Coors lines,
but a long list of regional and craft beers such as George
Killian’s and Blue Moon and imports such as Pilsner Urquel and
Molson. Leinenkugel beers aren’t in danger because their licenses
are good through 2012, MillerCoors spokesman Tom Ryan
said.
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The same problem might affect other brewers as well as wineries and
distillers at some point, Neville said. And it comes as hundreds of
bars, restaurants and liquor stores across the state are running
afoul of a similar renewal requirement that’s starting to leave
them unable to replenish their supplies as the hottest part of the
year approaches.
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Minnesota requires that brewers, wineries and distillers take out
brand label registrations for products they sell in the state. They
cost only $30 and are good for three years. MillerCoors’
registrations expired June 13.
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Green said MillerCoors submitted its paperwork and the check on
time, on the 13th. Neville said the state didn’t receive them until
June 15, two days after the registrations expired.
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Whether it was the 13th or 15th might not have mattered because the
check was for $1,380, a $210 overpayment, Green said. That delayed
the process. The state received a second check for the right amount
on June 27, he said.
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But by that time, Neville said, employees in the department’s
alcohol enforcement division didn’t have time to process the
renewals before they were laid off. On top of that, he said, the
computer database they use to process renewals was taken offline
along with some other systems so the department’s skeleton IT crew
can concentrate on maintaining more critical systems relied upon by
law enforcement agencies.
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Companies with shutdown disputes can turn to the state courts,
which have set up a process for handling pleas for help overseen by
Ramsey County Chief Judge Kathleen Gearin and an appointed special
master, former state Supreme Court Chief Justice Kathleen
Blatz.
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That’s what many retailers have already done. They’re required to
have $20 “buyer’s cards” to purchase liquor from wholesalers, and
they must be renewed annually by the same laid-off employees that
process brand registrations. Hundreds of those cards have expired
or will soon. So retailers went before Blatz on Tuesday to ask for
an order to recall some employees to process renewals. A decision
is pending.
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Green said MillerCoors wants to reach a solution through
discussions short of legal action.
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“For now we’re still selling beer in the state, but we hope we can
bring this issue to a resolution because there are a number of
Minnesota businesses at stake. In this environment we don’t want to
see these businesses negatively impacted.”
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It’s not clear if discussions could solve the problem, however.
Neville said alcohol control officials determined they couldn’t
just look the other way and let MillerCoors do business as
usual.
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“Our enforcement agents looked carefully at the statute and there
nothing in there that lets us make any special arrangements with
anybody,” Neville said.
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Neville didn’t know which other producers besides MillerCoors, the
country’s No. 2 brewer, might be affected, but said St. Louis,
Mo.-based Anheuser-Busch Cos. Inc., the largest U.S. beer maker, is
safe at least until Oct. 1. “Our agents, I know, are looking at
other brands,” he said.
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The potential loss of popular MillerCoors beers comes as another
blow to liquor store, restaurant and bar owners who were thinking
things couldn’t get any worse, said Frank Ball, executive director
of the Minnesota Licensed Beverage Association.
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“It could be 102 degrees this weekend,” Ball said. “We need cold
beer.”
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