Shutdown Trickledown: Boulder Alcohol Businesses Feeling Effects

BOULDER, CO -- The urge to crack open a cold one may be intensifying as the government shutdown prepares to enter its fifth week, but local breweries and wine shops are finding it more challenging to provide bottle service. The Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau hasn't made it onto the list of essential government services yet, and that has created big problems for both new businesses waiting on licenses and existing ones that need to get product labels approved, reports the Daily Camera.

"We have about 15 beers that are on hold, and that number seems to grow every day," Dave Taylor, the marketing director at Boulder County's Oskar Blues told the Camera. "We're on indefinite hold right now."

The slowdown is an even bigger problem for new businesses that are in a tenuous financial situation as they try to open.

"We work with a lot of small businesses and a lot of startups, and it's heartbreaking for these folks who have been planning for a year or more and are getting capital ready and have inventory, whether it's grapes or hops or grain, and it's all sitting there and you can do nothing with it," Mike Laszlo, a Boulder attorney who specializes in representing clients in the alcohol industry told the Camera. "It's such a small margin of error for these companies, and some could go under before they even get started, and there is very little we can do. It's a real shame."

Get the full story from the Daily Camera here.

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