Preemption in alcohol control: Lessons learned the hard way

The field of alcohol control has a history of dealing with preemption challenges dating back to the enactment of the 21st Amendment in 1933. Unlike other consumer products, alcohol is heavily regulated at the state level. Because the 21st Amendment expressly gives states the authority to regulate alcohol, federal preemption is rarely at issue. However, state-level preemption is an ongoing challenge. In an attempt to thwart local control, the alcohol industry has overturned numerous local ordinances by getting state legislatures to pass preemption statutes. In one particularly painful example in California, years of hard work to enact dozens of local ordinances to ban the sale of alcohol at gas stations were wiped out with one state preemption statute. This presentation will describe these lessons learned, explaining why alcohol advocates have become fierce defenders of local control, writing into virtually every state bill express language to preserve the rights of local jurisdictions to go further than state law. The critical importance of preemption in other issues, such as food policy, will also be discussed.