Tennessee bill pushes to ban sale of cold beer to decrease DUIs

It’s a pint of contention.

A bill working its way through the Tennessee legislature seeks to ban cold beer sales in the state.

The proposal, SB2636, was introduced on Jan. 31 and decreed that “a person or entity holding a beer permit…shall not sell refrigerated or cold beer at retail.”

The bill has passed the Senate twice and is now being referred to a committee, according to the state website.

SB2636 is sponsored by Republicans Sen. Paul Rose and Rep. Ron Gant.

The bill is motivated by a push to decrease DUI incidents in the state, Gant told WREG.

“We see the evidence in many accidents where alcohol is found in the car, beer cans, and beer bottles,” the politician explained.

“And we see it on the side of the road in many of our roads across the state and every county, you see the many beer bottles, beer cans that litter our highways,” he added.

In 2019, about 21.5 % of fatal traffic accidents in Tennessee involved alcohol use, according to the Tennessee Safety Resource Prosecutors.

But business owners are concerned about the bill’s potential to put a chill on their business.

“That would be very detrimental to our brewery and the beer business in general,” Andy Ashby, co-owner of Memphis Made Brewing, told WREG of the legislation.

Convenience and grocery store sales are a key part of his enterprise, Ashby explained, and shoppers largely prefer cold beer.

“There’s a saying in beer sales: Cold is gold,” he noted.

“[The bill] would have a huge impact, huge. Package sales are somewhere around 40 to 50 percent of our sales, and 90 percent of that is cold,” said Drew Barton, head brewer at Memphis Made. 

If the bill passes, Memphis Made plans to contact the Tennessee Brewers Guild and hopefully push back on the move, Ashby told the outlet.

“They’ve been very proactive in helping craft brewers across the state, working with them. Working with bigger breweries. And figure out a way to work around this or however you want to look at it,” he explained.

The Tennessee Brewers Guild, Sen. Rose, and Rep. Gant did not immediately respond to The Post’s request for a comment on the bill.