Beer and booze delivered to your home? It's possible under a new bill in the state Legislature

MADISON — Wisconsinites could soon order beers and booze straight to their doors instead of venturing outside of their homes to make the purchase, under a new bill authored by a bipartisan group of legislators.

The bill's authors — Sen. Duey Stroebel, R-Town of Cedarburg, Sen. Kelda Roys, D-Madison, Rep. Cindi Duchow, R-Delafield and Rep. LaKeshia Myers, D-Milwaukee — bridge a broad political spectrum and are calling for allowing retailers to deliver alcohol directly to customers or provide a curbside service for those looking to pick up an order on-the-go.

Currently in Wisconsin, sellers can only make face-to-face sales of alcohol to consumers at the licensed store. After the sale is made, the seller can deliver the alcohol to a location for the consumer, but the purchase must be made in person.

The state is only one of eight that prohibit online orders, Stroebel said.

"We're really an outlier on this, and I think it makes sense for our retailers, it makes sense for our consumers, it just seems to make sense all around," he said.

The new bill would allow consumers to place an order online or by phone and have their alcohol delivered to their location, eliminating the need for face-to-face contact with the alcohol seller.

There are some stipulations in the bill. The alcohol must be delivered in its original unopened package or in a tamper-evident sealed container, payment has to be completed when the order is placed, the customer must be able to prove they are at least 21, deliveries can only be made during the normal hours of the business.

The bill also requires that alcohol purchased in this manner to be the same price that in-person customers would pay, and all options for sale in the store must be available for delivery.

Businesses wishing to offer delivery of alcohol could apply for a permit from the state. Permits would cost $150 yearly for retailers and $300 yearly for delivery services. To qualify the retailer would have to derive less than 50% of its annual revenue from food and beverage delivery.

The legislation also provides for curbside pickup of alcohol

In addition to delivery of alcohol, the bill would also allow customers to pick-up booze curbside, after placing an order online or by phone. Businesses wishing to offer a curbside service must have designated spots for customers to park in while their order is brought out to them.

The bill simply modernizes Wisconsin's system for alcohol sales, said Roys, one of the authors. It will help places like her neighborhood wine shop in Madison compete with big national wine companies that are already shipping packages to customers' door steps.

"I could go to a vineyard in California and sign up for their wine club and they could ship me wine, but I wouldn't be able to get it from my neighborhood wine store," she said. "We just want to make sure that for retailers who want to offer that service for consumers that they're able to."

Stroebel said that having additional choices for getting alcohol isn't a crazy idea.

"I mean, frankly, you can stay home, sit in your living room, and you could order you know, a six pack of beer, and it could be delivered to your door," he said. "I see a number of benefits to that option being available."

More:5 things to know about the new law that allows the sale of to-go cocktails and wine in Wisconsin

Worries over age confirmation for deliveries

This isn't the first time legislators have moved to allow curbside pick up or delivery. Two separate bills were introduced to allow off-site purchasing for pick up and deliveries in 2021, but time in the legislative session ran out before they were able to be approved by both the Assembly and Senate.

One of the groups that pushed back against the legislation was the powerful Tavern League of Wisconsin, with concerns about who would be responsible for verifying the age of customers, particularly during deliveries.

"We need to make certain to the best of our ability that people who aren't of legal drinking age can't obtain alcohol," said Scott Stenger, the government affairs officer for the Tavern League. "We need to be able to verify that whoever is making that purchase is of legal drinking age."

The League's main concern is that the responsibility for checking the ID of a consumer could be handed over to the delivery person, instead of a cashier in a store, therefore potentially passing the liability onto someone else.

"That invites bad actors into the retail alcohol business, which isn't good," he said.

Stenger said if the legislation were to address that issue head on, then the League would be more likely to jump on board with the idea of curbside pick up or delivery.

"We're not saying no to delivery, we're saying no to the mechanisms that we've seen in this bill," he said.

But there would be protections put into place to prevent the sales of alcohol to underage drinkers, said Jeff Glazer, an attorney with Ogden Glazer + Schaefer, who focuses on issues in the food and beverage industry. The bill requires training to get a permit, ensuring that delivery drivers would know how to check IDs. And other establishments already check IDs, like college bars around the University of Wisconsin in Madison.

"You know, the Kollege Klub and State Street Brats managed to figure it out, I'm sure (delivery drivers) can," he said.

Stroebel said the training and ID-checking requirements actually go beyond other regulations for purchasing, so concerns over underage customers shouldn't be allowed to hold up the bill.

"You know, we're not creating a miracle law here," he said. "But what what it does have many requirements and regulations in terms of allowable delivery hours, customer age verification, training for delivery personnel and record keeping to ensure appropriate safeguards are in place."

Laura Schulte can be reached at leschulte@jrn.com and on Twitter at @SchulteLaura.

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This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Wisconsin bill would allow home delivery, curbside pick-up of alcohol