Cocktails to-go, a pandemic-era boon for restaurants, forever legal in WA

First extended as an olive branch to bars and restaurants at the height of the pandemic, to-go cocktails will be a permanent fixture in Washington state under a bill passed by the Legislature on Tuesday.

Gov. Jay Inslee is expected to sign SB 5448, which allows most on-premise, liquor-license holders to sell premixed drinks in sealable containers with takeout orders. A temporary version of similar rules was set to expire at the end of June. The new law takes effect July 1.

Forty senators voted in favor of the bill, while eight Democrats voted against it. In the House, the vote was 80 to 18, with four Republicans joining a slate of Democrats in a no-vote.

Washington joins 18 other states and the District of Columbia in making permanent the sale of to-go alcohol that blossomed in 2020 when many restaurants relied predominantly on takeout and delivery. Fourteen additional states have allowed such sales on a temporary basis, according to the Distilled Spirits Council, which praised the bill’s passage in Olympia.

“Consumers across the state have enjoyed cocktails to-go for the last few years, and making this option permanent increases convenience while supporting local business,” Adam Smith, vice president of state government relations for the industry group, said in a news release.

License holders who will be able to offer to-go cocktails, glasses of wine and beer — in factory-sealed or tamper-evident packaging — include full-service restaurants, taverns and snack bars; domestic wineries, breweries, microbreweries and distilleries; nonprofit arts institutions and catering companies. Though available at no additional cost, these businesses would have to receive formal approval from the Liquor and Cannabis Board, adhering to the agency’s rules.

At Heritage Distilling Co., a 10-year-old craft distillery based in Gig Harbor with several tasting rooms in Washington and one in Oregon, co-owner and CEO Justin Stiefel was “thrilled” at the bill’s passage.

The temporary rules, in place since late 2020 under pandemic emergency guidelines and made law the following year, “were a good testing opportunity to show that consumer habits are changing,” said Stiefel in an email to McClatchy. “If state regulators want to give bars, restaurants and distillers the chance to remain relevant in the market, they need to be flexible enough to respond to consumer demands in a way that does not negatively impact public safety. We all see now that cocktails to-go are a safe option and this bill recognizes that.”

IMPACT OF TO-GO COCKTAILS IN WA

Under the now-usurped 2021 bill, the LCB was tasked with studying how takeout cocktails affected potential public health and safety issues from drunken driving, underage drinking and over-consumption. The report, shared with the Legislature in December, also considered alcohol use and access both before and after pandemic restrictions limited, for instance, service hours.

▪ Adults consumed an average of 8 percent more drinks per day, according to the study’s use of a behavioral analysis from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and binge drinking increased by 10 percent.

▪ To understand the effect on underage drinking, the LCB compared data from the state’s Healthy Youth Survey in 2018 and 2021. It found that youth consumption decreased from 13 to 8 percent, and kids were less likely to procure alcohol through friends, theft or from home.

▪ A review of information from the Washington Traffic Safety Commission and the Washington Poison Center showed that pedestrian fatalities in an alcohol-related car crash were three times more likely to occur. Emergency room visits, per the state Department of Health, fell by 1 percent.

▪ LCB emphasized that 637 of 13,200 eligible license holders statewide (5 percent) requested permission to sell to-go cocktails in 2021 and 2022. More than three-quarters were in urban counties, including one-third from King County.

In its conclusion, the LCB cautioned that it was unable to rope in “other factors that might have impacted the changes (e.g. remote work and education, reduced tourism, staffing shortages for law enforcement and the hospitality industry, and mental health impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic); thus, we did not establish a cause-and-effect relationship.”

Ultimately, the agency said it had “no recommendations on extending the privileges or letting them expire” but encouraged further study, especially in relation to underage drinking, at-home consumption and the viability of safe delivery. It would also be useful to understand how consumers feel about the idea of cocktails to-go and the impact on third-party delivery companies such as DoorDash and Drizly, the latter of which focuses on alcohol delivery primarily from retailers like BevMo, the agency said.

In an email to McClatchy, LCB communications director Brian Smith defined the agency as “primarily concerned with public safety and preventing youth access to alcohol.” Despite having supported pandemic-era modifications for the hospitality industry, it was “neutral” on the final version of the bill, he said.

DELIVERY STILL TEMPORARY, CANNED COCKTAILS UP NEXT?

A win for the state’s restaurant industry, as well as breweries, wineries and distilleries like Heritage, the bill passed this week appears to have embraced some of LCB’s findings.

Cocktail kits, where sealed mini “airplane” liquor bottles would accompany other ingredients, are not permitted at all, and delivery of premixed drinks, allowed under the state’s temporary bill adopted in 2021, would again sunset in two years, on July 1, 2025.

From July 1 of this year through the end of June two years from now, restaurants, bars and other businesses that choose to sell cocktails to-go can deliver them. But they cannot use third-party companies — the driver must be an over-21 employee — and the order must include food.

Sen. Steve Conway (D-Tacoma) told McClatchy in a statement that youth access to alcohol was “a big issue” for him and that making it easier to drink seemed ill-advised, alluding to a rise in mental health challenges in recent years.

“A program like this made sense during the pandemic to help struggling businesses and to accommodate people stuck at home,” he said. “But we saw record alcohol use during Covid and I can’t support a program that could potentially result in even more use or with alcohol ending up in the hands of kids.”

An earlier version of the bill would have allowed delivery when signed for by someone over the age of 21, to continue indefinitely. Smith pointed to third-party services’ “dismal” track record with sales to minors compliance and their lack of state-issued liquor licenses — thus skirting oversight — as reasons for it being cut from SB 5448.

Another alcohol-related bill that did not make its way out of committee during the 2023 legislative session, HB 1344, would adjust the tax on another kind of premixed drinks: canned cocktails.

In the footsteps of a canned wine boom, Heritage Distilling has watched that segment of the cocktail and spirits business blossom, but Stiefel remains discouraged by the way they are taxed. Under current regulations in Washington state, canned cocktails, which usually carry an alcohol-by-volume around 6 percent — lower than many IPAs — are taxed at the same retail rate of bottled liquor with ABVs of 20 percent or higher.