02/03/2025

With S.B. 23, Ohio Craft Breweries Aim to Change Wholesaler and Franchise Laws

The bill is supported by the Ohio Craft Brewers Association

Two weeks ago, Senator Andrew Brenner introduced S.B. 23, a bill to modernize the Ohio Alcoholic Beverages Franchise Act and support small businesses across the state. Enacted in 1974, Ohio’s franchise law has bestowed protected and favored status on large, powerful wholesale beer distributors in their contracts with the small and independent breweries that supply them. The Brewers Freedom Alliance urges Ohio lawmakers to support S.B. 23 to reform this antiquated law that punishes small businesses.

Under the terms of the 1974 franchise law, beer distribution contracts are effectively unbreakable, a feature that the nearly 200 small, regional distributors of the time had written to protect them from the undue influence of massive brewing companies. More than five decades of consolidation have made the few dozen remaining distributors exponentially larger and more powerful. They now abuse the 50-year-old franchise law to exert leverage over small and independent brewers — including the more than 440 doing business in Ohio — locking them into the same permanent distribution contracts they have with the industry giants.

"Since 1974, the state of Ohio has held its thumb on the scale in favor of beer distributors and to the detriment of independent breweries due to franchise law," said OSAP member Mary MacDonald, executive director of the Ohio Craft Brewers Association (OCBA). "Lawmakers on both sides of the aisle recognize that franchise law is anticompetitive and actively harmful to small businesses. We appreciate Senator Brenner's continued action on behalf of Ohio’s small and independent breweries, and we urge the General Assembly to support reasonable, common sense reform of this outdated law."

Please select this link to read the complete article from Craft Brewing Business.