Legislative Session Ends

The State Assembly and Senate completed their work for the year earlier this month. Left undone (thankfully) were a number of measures of concern to the Association including elimination of the tip credit, creation of a lien for employees filing wage and hour claims, and expansion of the bottle bill to include wine and liquor bottles. But the climate change advocates did advance legislation on “equipment efficiency” that if signed by the Governor will delegate to a state agency the power to regulate all sorts of equipment in buildings – both commercial and residential. Now that the legislature has left Albany we’ll work to persuade the Governor to veto this bill or, at the very least, to seek to minimize the impact of this measure on our members.

There were a number of bills introduced late in the year that represent a hodgepodge of changes to the Alcohol Beverage Control law. These suggested “reforms” to the law represent some of the issues that will likely be raised during the discussions of the ABC Law Reform Commission agreed to as part of the State Budget. No members of the Commission have been named yet, but we expect the proceedings to get underway sometime over the summer. Past history suggests that little will come from this Commission, however, we will need to keep a close eye on their deliberations.