Pinkies up: To-go cocktails are here to stay in Vermont.
The House and Senate on Thursday approved legislation permitting to-go sales of alcoholic drinks in the state for at least another two years.
At the outset of the Covid-19 pandemic, Gov. Phil Scott signed an executive order allowing your favorite watering hole to sell alcohol for — as the kids surely call it — “off-premises consumption.” In 2021, the state codified the provision into law, but set it up to sunset come July 2023.
Though to-go drinks are an advent of the era of social distancing, Vermonters and everyone else on planet Earth quickly learned that drinks taste infinitely better in some sort of disposable vessel, in a location of your choosing. Yes, of course you could make your own drink, but that’s not the point, silly!
Thursday’s vote tops Vermonters off for another two years of to-go bevs, but the bill is still far from bottomless. It will require reauthorization once again come 2025.
“Once the sunset sunsets, I feel we should all celebrate with a round of tequila sunrises for the dawn of a new day,” said the bill’s primary sponsor, Rep. Matt Birong, D-Vergennes, with not so much as a giggle.
Of course, no bill would be complete without a study, and H.470 does not disappoint, calling on the Department of Health and the Department of Liquor and Lottery to report on “the public health impacts” of to-go drinkies by January 2025.
Until then, drink responsibly!
— Shaun Robinson and Sarah Mearhoff
ON THE MOVE
On the eve of their planned adjournment date, the House and Senate have broken an impasse that threatened to sink child care legislation that Democrats in both chambers championed as one of their biggest priorities coming into the session.
The two chambers have been at loggerheads for weeks about how to finance their historic investment in Vermont’s beleaguered child care sector. While they generally agreed on the price tag — a little over $100 million a year — each body held fast to profoundly different ideas about how to raise the money. The Senate favored a payroll tax; the House wanted to raise corporate and personal income taxes.
— Lola Duffort
The final chapter of one of this legislative session’s fiercest political battles came to a close Thursday, when the House cast the final vote required to override Gov. Phil Scott’s veto of S.5, or the Affordable Heat Act.
In a 107-42 vote, the lower chamber ensured the Legislature’s highest-profile climate bill will become law despite the governor’s opposition. With 149 members present, 100 votes were required to override Scott’s veto.
— Sarah Mearhoff
After hours of debate this week, the Vermont House approved legislation on Thursday that would increase legislators’ pay by 2027 — a move supporters have argued will make serving in Montpelier more accessible for people from diverse backgrounds.
Under the bill, S.39, lawmakers also would be eligible for the same health insurance coverage — with the same premium split — as state employees. The pay increases would take effect starting in 2025, which supporters have been keen to note, arguing that they want to raise the salaries of future classes of lawmakers, not their own.
— Shaun Robinson
The Senate on Thursday, by a unanimous voice vote, approved a bill, H.270, that opens the door to developing new strains of cannabis and makes some changes in the cannabis medical system.
The bill would create a new “cannabis propagation cultivator” license allowing the establishment of cannabis nurseries in Vermont.
“The purpose of this license type is to allow businesses to specialize in developing new strains or cultivars and provide clean, tested source material for cultivators,” Sen. Wendy Harrison, D-Windham, told colleagues as she presented the bill during the initial debate Wednesday night.
— Fred Thys
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