Lawmakers reject idea of campus taprooms

HELENA — A tasting room is no longer on tap for Flathead Valley Community College’s growing brewery program.

On Thursday, lawmakers amended a Flathead lawmaker’s bill that would have allowed the college to operate an on-campus taproom to sell samples of beer brewed by students. The current version of House Bill 462 would only allow the program to sell beer to distributors that market the beer off-campus.

Originally written to allow limited taprooms on any state college campus with a brewery program, the bill easily won approval in the House last month, but the Senate committee narrowed the language to apply only to the Kalispell campus. Some lawmakers worried that it could lead to a proliferation of problems throughout Montana’s university and community-college systems.

That move was rejected in the House, however, after a Billings lawmaker objected to the exclusion of Montana State University’s campus in his hometown, which recently began its own brewing program.

That sent it to a special committee consisting of lawmakers from both chambers who voted to include the Billings program, but then went further by switching to off-campus distribution.

The altered bill passed the Senate Friday, and next heads for the House.

Rep. Frank Garner, R-Kalispell, sponsored the bill. During the Thursday conference committee, he objected to the changes, noting that majorities in the House and Senate had already endorsed the bill’s original intent.

“I think it’s a good opportunity over this biennium to see how these two programs work with these restrictions in place,” he said. “The bills that we passed in both houses, with those significant limitations on it, is what we said we were going to do for these programs.”

The Senate passed the latest version of Garner’s bill on Friday, sending it to the House for consideration.

Reporter Sam Wilson can be reached at 758-4407 or by email at swilson@dailyinterlake.com.