Canned cocktails could be sold at grocery stores in North Carolina under a bill proposed by House legislators. It's one of several provisions in an ABC & Gambling Omnibus Bill. (Photo by Dimitrios Kambouris/Getty Images for Curateur)
A bill to bring canned cocktails to grocery store shelves, legalize “happy hour” promotions, and loosen other liquor restrictions advanced in the North Carolina House Tuesday, albeit with a few concessions to conservative opponents.
The most overt change to House Bill 921: ABC & Gaming Omnibus Bill, was the elimination of a provision to allow Alcoholic Beverage Control stores to open on Sundays subject to local approval, which faced strong objections from religious conservatives.
The first state to enact alcohol prohibition in 1908, North Carolina has long held onto blue laws curtailing alcohol sales. In 2021, the state saw the first legal Sunday sale of a bottle of liquor in more than a century — but it was sold at a distillery, not an ABC store.
North Carolina remains one of 17 states to operate its own liquor stores, the only retailers in the state permitted to carry liquor.
But under the new bill, any retailer that stocks beer and wine will be allowed to sell premixed cocktails by the can — the fastest growing category of alcohol sales in the United States. The previous version of the bill would have allowed canned cocktails up to 13% ABV, but in another compromise, lawmakers lowered that limit to 9.9% ABV.
Looser liquor law proposed by NC lawmakers faces moral, fiscal objections
The new version of the bill also modifies a policy change that reduces the discretion of ABC stores, allowing businesses with mixed beverage permits to bypass their local store if it does not carry a product they want.
The business can receive a 90-day waiver to purchase the beverage at any store in the state — a change from the previous version of the bill, which would have allowed businesses to make statewide purchases without requiring a waiver.
“The purpose of the waiver is to identify the deficiencies in some locations as to a request for the particular item and the lack of ability to get it in that particular region,” said Rep. Ray Pickett (R-Watauga), one of the bill’s primary sponsors. “Hopefully we can address that, working closely with that paperwork being a paper trail to show a history of unfilled needs or requests for particular allocations.”
The omnibus bill sparked concern after its introduction last week that opening up sales of canned cocktails could presage the full privatization of liquor sales, something some Republican lawmakers have urged for years.
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SUBSCRIBEAndy Ellen, a lobbyist with the North Carolina Retail Merchants Association and one of the most vocal backers of the legislation, said the changes to the bill are positive.
“The changes that were made to the bill, especially on the ready-to-drink cocktail piece, lowering down the alcohol by volume, speaks a tremendous amount to what we were talking about, which is allowing retailers to sell low-alcohol spirit-based products just like they are selling traditional alcohol currently today,” Ellen said. “This is not a move towards privatization.”
Even still, the changes were not enough to convince some objectors who took moral issue with the legislature’s approach — arguing that the major changes to North Carolina liquor laws contained in the 75-page bill will endanger the health and safety of the state’s residents.
“In my 26 years of working on alcohol policy, this is the largest bill that I’ve ever seen,” said Rev. Mark Creech, a lobbyist with Christian values organization Return America. “This is an industry bill. It reflects the business side of alcohol policy almost entirely. But what is missing is the ‘C’ in ABC.”
H921 passed the House ABC Committee Tuesday morning and will proceed to the House Finance Committee for further consideration.
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