AB Corporate intervention fizzles
Unfortunately, despite a promising start, Anheuser-Busch corporate have not given us any indication of their answer. You can contact their corporate offices on 1-800-DIAL-BUD (1 800 342 5283) or https://contactus.anheuser-busch.com/contactus/email.asp to express your opinion, but this time we are expanding our efforts and concentrating elsewhere.
We need more visibility for the boycott, and as such would ask each of you to do just 2 things out of this list:
1. Call or email Birmingham Budweiser (keep trying if it's busy!). 205-945-4893, customerservice@bhambud.com
2. Wear your FTH t-shirt, hat, or anything else you have with our logo when you go out.
3. Tell all your friends, family and coworkers (suggest Miller/Coors as alternatives if necessary).
4. Have a Bud-free Superbowl Party, or join the one at the J.Clyde. Urge your local bars to do the same.
5. Ask your local stores, bars & restaurants to join the boycott. They do not have to pull AB products off their shelves, they can show support for our cause by offering Miller or Coors to their customers and allow their customers to make up their own minds.
6. Forward the boycott information as an email, Myspace bulletin, Facebook notice, blog post, etc., to all your Birmingham friends.
This is our third year attempting to get this bill passed. It has only taken this long because one single business - Birmingham Budweiser - has engaged in underhanded tactics to maintain a government control that inhibits competition and removes consumer choice. We will no longer engage in their time-wasting "negotiations" which ultimately lead nowhere.
You can shed light onto these shady tactics by writing to your local newspaper. For many of you, you can find the "Letters to the editor" section for your local newspaper at www.al.com and write to them there.
Please remember to be respectful and polite when you contact anyone - this is very important to make sure both that our voices are heard and that weight is given to our opinions.
Feel free to refer those you contact to our website, or to me, if they want more information.
I truly feel that with the help of all our members and supporters we will succeed. If everyone can do just 2 things from the above list to spread the word, we can make this the last restricted Superbowl weekend.
Let's Free the Hops!
Anheuser Busch corporate has heard you!
Anheuser Busch corporate offices have heard you! They have contacted our lobbyist to discuss the situation, so I would ask you all to hold off on calling AB corporate until this Tuesday (January 29) to allow discussions to take place. This is an act - and a show - of good faith on our part. By pausing the telephone calls, we are showing that we trust AB corporate.
I would just like to emphasise that this is a step by AB corporate, coming to us to discuss things. This does not change the Birmingham Bud Boycott - I am only asking you to hold off on calling AB corporate for now.
This is good news!
Have a good (Bud-free) weekend!
Free The Hops president responds to Pat Lynch
Yesterday Pat Lynch spoke with Ben Cunningham of the Anniston Star to state his position regarding the recently announced FTH boycott of Birmingham Budweiser.
I would like to rebut several statements he made in that interview.
Lynch states he has taken no steps to pre-empt anything that might be introduced in the Legislature's upcoming session.
There are no steps he needs to have taken at this point. But he has made it clear he will try again to kill a Jefferson County local bill if we try to pass one. That doesn't require "pre-emption," it only requires making a phone call to kill it in committee, just as he did last year.
"It would be good before somebody boycotts us for somebody to call and ask our position."
There was no need for an assumption of his position. We have been dealing with his opposition to our efforts for over two years. Our decision to boycott wasn't made in a vacuum. He has a history of working against us and he has made it clear his position hasn't changed.
- In June 2007, Lynch sat down at a table with the former President of FTH and our lobbyist and struck a deal in which he pledged to help us pass a Jefferson County local bill in return for our including a provision that would limit refrigeration of high ABV beers. If that concession was agreed to by FTH, he would support the Jefferson County bill and attend a dinner with the key members of the Jefferson County delegation to personally express his support.
Two weeks later he told us that the other Bud guys wouldn't support local bills and he just couldn't go against what the other Bud wholesalers decided. - In that Fall he declined to attend the local delegation dinner at Highlands and reiterated his opposition to the Jefferson County local bill.
- This Tuesday (January 22, 2008) he announced publicly in the AWBA meeting that he would oppose all local bills in the legislative session.
We didn't feel it was necessary to notify him we were about to launch a boycott in the same way he didn't feel it was necessary to notify us when he was about to kill our Jefferson County bill last year.
Local bills to raise the 6-percent alcohol-by-volume cap on beer sold in Alabama are a bad idea because they would create a patchwork of regulations for the state's Alcoholic Beverage Control Board to enforce.
Lynch made no mention of this "patchwork of regulations" argument last June when we struck a deal; it is ridiculous on its face. The ABC already deals with a patchwork of regulations regarding alcohol, as every county has the ability to make local laws governing the sale of alcohol within its borders. This means there are wet and dry counties, wet cities in dry counties, draft and no-draft counties, counties with different container limits, Sunday sales in some counties but not others... the list goes on.
The ABC does not oppose a "patchwork of regulations" and it is not Lynch's place to kill a local bill, on their unrequested behalf, based on his personal opinion.
Lynch continues to support a statewide bill raising the ABV limit.
He's been claiming this for 2 years now, but all of his actions betray the emptiness of this assertion. If he really supported raising the ABV limit, he would support our local bill because there is no valid reason to oppose local bills on this issue. He only opposes local bills because they are easier to pass and he doesn't want the limit raised. Lynch has never lifted a finger to help us get our statewide bill passed and all evidence would lead a reasonable person to believe he has been working behind closed doors against passage of our statewide bill.
Lynch took action to block the Jefferson County bill because it would have raised the cap and allowed for containers larger than 16 ounces.
FTH has never introduced any bill that would affect container size and Lynch knows it. We agreed to delay that issue in favour of pushing the ABV bill first.
The text of our local bill from last year - HB728 - proves it. The text of this bill can be read on the Alabama legislature's website. posted by Stuart Carter at 3:22 PM permanent link 10 comments