Fake News

Two recent news stories have caused a bit of a kerfuffle with business owners due to bad information being put forward, but in these cases the fault lies with the group pushing out the stories. One story floating around is that a bill passed by the legislature this year will raise the minimum age of servers from 18 to 21. Another story reports that the legislature passed a bill granting 12 weeks of bereavement leave with pay to employees.

The bill that supposedly raised the serving age from 18 to 21 was actually an amendment to the Tax law for craft producers. While it contained some unartful language requiring the age of servers giving away tax-free samples, at no point did anyone involved in this discussion think the change impacted anyone except the craft producers. A change to the Tax law can’t change the rules under the Alcoholic Beverage Control law. But it got more people upset about the bill by claiming it could affect all licensed premises so that’s what the opponents told the press. Similarly, the legislature did pass a bill to provide for bereavement leave for employees. They amended the existing paid family leave bill to add the death of a family member as a covered situation under the law. So it’s correct that under this bill someone could theoretically claim 12 weeks of bereavement leave but it’s not additional leave – it’s part of the total annual paid leave someone can take. We spent a lot of time over the last few weeks straightening out this misinformation and hope this update clears things up for everyone.