{"id":10896,"date":"2024-02-08T13:59:56","date_gmt":"2024-02-08T13:59:56","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"-0001-11-30T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"-0001-11-30T00:00:00","slug":"Alcohol-labeling-bill-divides-breweries-substance-use-prevention-advocates-53980697\/","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nne-concord-monitor-2.newspackstaging.com\/?p=10896","title":{"rendered":"Alcohol labeling bill creates divide"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"A
A can featuring a label for Hugs and Belly Rubs, a label at To Share Brewing in Manchester that was briefly blocked by the Liquor Commission for being too enticing for kids.\u00a0<\/figcaption><\/figure>
\"The
The label for Smokey\u2019s Kangaroo, a beer at To Share Brewing.\u00a0<\/figcaption><\/figure>
\"The
The label for Balloon Music, a limited beer at To Share Brewing that was briefly blocked by the Liquor Commission for being too enticing for kids.\u00a0<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/figure>

Aaron Share\u2019s dog Blue has graced the cans \u2013 and premises \u2013 of To Share Brewing Company in Manchester for years.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The black and white pit bull is the mascot of one of the brewery\u2019s longest running labels: \u201cHugs and Belly Rubs.\u201d Cans for the oatmeal stout show a cartoon Blue sitting straight, hands rubbing her belly and head, smiling.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The real Blue lives a quiet life, wandering the brewery that Share founded five years ago and greeting stray customers with a toy. But the cartoon Blue caused a political stir last year, when officials at the state Liquor Commission briefly rejected Hugs and Belly Rubs and other To Share beer labels, arguing the stylized marketing was too enticing for kids.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The commission later backed off that decision after press coverage. But the controversy has ballooned into a standoff among breweries, state regulators, and substance use prevention advocates. And it has found its way to the State House, where the Senate is expected to vote down a bill that would explicitly bar alcohol labels with cartoon drawings from approval in New Hampshire.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Next week, the Senate is likely to send that bill, Senate Bill 335, to interim study, preventing it from advancing. Share is pleased.<\/p>\n

\u201cI feel like the bill unfairly targets smaller breweries that have artwork on their labels and are trying to do the right thing,\u201d he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The bill\u2019s fate is little surprise: It faced early opposition from breweries and prominent lawmakers, like House Majority Leader Jason Osborne. But organizations advocating against substance misuse say the risk to children posed by some alcohol marketing is real, and should be better regulated.<\/p>\n

\u201cCan\u2019t we agree that an adult product should be packaged in an adult way?\u201d said Dana Mitchell, coordinator for Dover Youth 2 Youth, a substance abuse prevention organization run by the Dover Police Department. \u201cMake it interesting. Make it stand out. But watch out for \u2013 be careful of crossing that line.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u2018The craft beer industry is supposed to be fun\u2019<\/h2>\n

To New Hampshire breweries, the can labels are expressions of art, not entrapments for kids.<\/p>\n

Share has created more than 80 beer types since founding To Share, some as limited editions and others in the permanent rotation. The names are often personal: \u201cGold Civic\u201d is an homage to Share\u2019s 1985 Honda; \u201cBernard\u201d a reference to his grandfather; and \u201cYoshimi\u201d a nod to a favorite album by the Flaming Lips.\u00a0<\/p>\n

One West Coast IPA, Smokey\u2019s Kangaroo, is particularly intimate. Smokey, Share\u2019s former cat in college, had a stuffed kangaroo \u2013 \u201chis toy, pet, whatever,\u201d Share said \u2013 that he would carry around the house. The label features a black cat in a bedroom silhouetted by the moon and a kangaroo in the foreground leaning against a wall.\u00a0<\/p>\n

To decorate the labels, Share turns to a roster of five local artists, each paid about $250 per label design. Some of the labels are playful and cartoonish; others are more abstract.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cPeople love a beer, but they also like what\u2019s outside of the can. It helps to distinguish yourself from a very competitive marketplace, especially if you\u2019re getting your beer on store shelves.\u201d<\/p>\n

But the beer design process goes beyond the artwork. Typically, when breweries want to create a new beer label, they must apply to the commission with information on the name of the beer, its price, its alcoholic percentage, and its logo, among other data points. Speed is important, Share says: The brewery is attempting to package and label the new beer and get it to market before it spoils \u2013 ideally within six weeks of it being made.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Share knows the system. When the commission rejected four of his labels in November, they were the first \u201cno\u201d decisions he\u2019d received in five years. That follows state statute governing liquor advertising restrictions in RSA 179:31.\u00a0<\/p>\n

In its letter to Share, the commission\u2019s enforcers said the labels included cartoon or fictional characters that are \u201creasonably likely to induce a minor to drink,\u201d he said. But the letter did not include suggestions on what the brewery could do to fix it, Share says.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Share prepared to appeal the decision to the full commission. But he also took his grievances to the media and contacted major politicians, including Manchester Rep. Matt Wilhelm, the House Democratic Leader, and the office Gov. Chris Sununu. After public attention, the commission changed its decision in days.\u00a0<\/p>\n

After his experience, Share says the legislation would just perpetuate unnecessary intrusion.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThe craft beer industry is supposed to be fun,\u201d he said. \u201cI mean, if you ever look at labels, craft beer cans are usually fun and artsy. And I have an issue with the government trying to regulate what is and what is not art because, you know, where does that end?\u201d<\/p>\n

What the kids see<\/h2>\n

The kids at Dover\u2019s \u201cYouth 2 Youth\u201d see the issue differently, Mitchell says. The alarm bells first came with Mountain Dew. The soft drink brand had paired with the Boston Beer Company to make \u201cHard Mountain Dew,\u201d a malt beverage flavored like the soda and containing 5 percent alcohol by volume.<\/p>\n

The product is not sold in New Hampshire, but when they learned of it, members of the substance use awareness group were concerned. In 2021, they wrote a letter to the Liquor Commission laying out their worries that the new product would be attractive to kids and urging the commission not to approve it.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Then, they began looking for similar products in New Hampshire. It didn\u2019t take long for the kids to assemble a short list. The findings included the Sunny-D vodka seltzer and the \u201cSlushie\u201d cans from Downeast Cider House.<\/p>\n

The kids in Youth 2 Youth would peruse the beer section of grocery stores and other shops, identify beer labels that they felt were enticing to young people, and tell Mitchell. Mitchell would buy the beer, empty one of the cans with a hole in the back, and then give it to the kids to affix to a poster board with zip ties. After a year, Youth 2 Youth had assembled a number of examples, and they went to the Liquor Commission with their findings.<\/p>\n

One of those labels was \u201cFinding NEIPA,\u201d a product of Concord Craft Brewing Company that featured a New England IPA with imagery reminiscent of the Pixar movie \u201cFinding Nemo.\u201d After the Liquor Commission revisited its approval, the label was discontinued by the brewery.<\/p>\n

Youth 2 Youth has helped lead the charge against the beer labels. They\u2019ve presented to schools, organized press events, interacted with Liquor Commission officials, and advocated about the issue to their local senator: David Watters, a Dover Democrat. Watters introduced SB 335.\u00a0<\/p>\n

To Mitchell, the bill would help create clear standards for the Liquor Commission to follow when making its decisions about the appropriateness of the labels. That clarity, he argues, would benefit kids, the commission, and even the breweries themselves, who would no longer face uncertainty over what would be approved when deciding whether to invest in a new label design.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cMaybe there\u2019s drawings that are OK, but exaggerated cartoon animals that aren\u2019t,\u201d he said. \u201cWe need some guidance like that.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2018I really wish the industry could come together\u2019\u00a0<\/h2>\n

SB 335 is on its way to failure: this week the Senate Commerce Committee voted 5-0 to recommend that it be sent to interim study and not advance. The full Senate will vote on that recommendation next week.<\/p>\n

Kate Frey, vice president of advocacy at New Futures, which advocates for substance abuse prevention, argues the likely fall of the bill is a missed opportunity for cooperation between breweries and advocates.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Currently, the Liquor Commission doesn\u2019t have clear directives for how to interpret the advertising statute, and enforcement decisions are largely subjective, Frey said. Adding a bare minimum of prohibited imagery, or a \u201cfloor,\u201d would reduce that subjectivity and reduce tentative scenarios like Share\u2019s, where his labels were rejected and then approved, Frey argued.\u00a0<\/p>\n

To Frey, prevention advocates\u2019 concerns lie more with the national corporations trading on kid-friendly brands, like the alcoholic versions of Mountain Dew and Sunny-D \u2013 and the companies promoting the toy-like cocktail products BuzzBallz \u2013 than the local breweries.\u00a0<\/p>\n

And more collaboration from those breweries and the kids who are advocating could result in an enforcement regime that all could live with, she said.<\/p>\n

\u201cI really wish the industry could come together and come up with a solution and that groups like Dover Youth 2 Youth and other young people would be at that table, helping make those decisions,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

For his part, Share is looking past his Liquor Commission entanglements. On Wednesday, he was manning the brewery alone, working on a new batch of a recurring beer: a doppelbock called Goats, Goats, Goats! The label has already been designed. In the drawing, about 40 cartoon goats, sporting 40 different emotions, are crammed into frame.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The design is so popular that a number of Share\u2019s friends have been getting tattoos of individual goats, with the blessing of the can\u2019s artist.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Share can prove it. He has one on his left arm.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n

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Aaron Share\u2019s dog Blue has graced the cans \u2013 and premises \u2013 of To Share Brewing Company in Manchester for years.\u00a0The black and white pit bull is the mascot of one of the brewery\u2019s longest running labels: \u201cHugs and Belly Rubs.\u201d Cans for the oatmeal…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":193,"featured_media":10897,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"newspack_ads_suppress_ads":false,"newspack_popups_has_disabled_popups":false,"newspack_sponsor_sponsorship_scope":"","newspack_sponsor_native_byline_display":"inherit","newspack_sponsor_native_category_display":"inherit","newspack_sponsor_underwriter_style":"inherit","newspack_sponsor_underwriter_placement":"inherit","_newspack_byline_active":true,"_newspack_byline":"by [Author id=193]Ethan Dewitt[\/Author] New Hampshire Bulletin","newspack_content_restriction_is_exempt":false,"newspack_featured_image_position":"","newspack_post_subtitle":"","newspack_article_summary_title":"Overview:","newspack_article_summary":"","newspack_hide_updated_date":false,"newspack_show_updated_date":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[19,508],"tags":[505],"newspack_spnsrs_tax":[],"coauthors":[545],"class_list":["post-10896","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-politics","category-top-headlines-cm","tag-paywall","entry"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/nne-concord-monitor-2.newspackstaging.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/02\/42880199-1.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nne-concord-monitor-2.newspackstaging.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10896","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nne-concord-monitor-2.newspackstaging.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nne-concord-monitor-2.newspackstaging.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nne-concord-monitor-2.newspackstaging.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/193"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nne-concord-monitor-2.newspackstaging.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=10896"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/nne-concord-monitor-2.newspackstaging.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10896\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10898,"href":"https:\/\/nne-concord-monitor-2.newspackstaging.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10896\/revisions\/10898"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nne-concord-monitor-2.newspackstaging.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/10897"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nne-concord-monitor-2.newspackstaging.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=10896"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nne-concord-monitor-2.newspackstaging.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=10896"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nne-concord-monitor-2.newspackstaging.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=10896"},{"taxonomy":"newspack_spnsrs_tax","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nne-concord-monitor-2.newspackstaging.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fnewspack_spnsrs_tax&post=10896"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nne-concord-monitor-2.newspackstaging.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcoauthors&post=10896"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}