The California Department of Public Health updated pandemic reopening guidance on Thursday, with some good news for breweries and distilleries.
The guidelines, which take effect Saturday, allow for those that operate outdoors to do so without serving food.
Many businesses scrambled to find ways to serve food during the course of the pandemic in order to stay open.
“I have been working with the San Diego Brewers Guild and the Governor’s Office for several weeks to establish a safe reopening plan, and I am glad breweries will now be able to open under the same guidelines as wineries,” said County Board of Supervisors Chair Nathan Fletcher. “This is good for brewers, good for our economic recovery and good for San Diego County.”
For alcohol-producing businesses that already serve food, not much changes. They will still be able to operate as restaurants under the county’s current tier restrictions.
Those rules call for outdoor service for businesses in areas in the purple and red tiers, and at limited in-door service in the orange tier.
The state’s new guidance also requires breweries to use a reservation system, limit patrons’ stays to no more than 90 minutes and end all on-site consumption by 8 p.m.
The North Park and Carmel Valley brewery Second Chance was among beer makers that sued Gov. Gavin Newsom in December, contending that they were “irreparably harmed by the state’s actions in response to COVID-19, including most significantly by the sit-down, dine-in meal requirement.”
Brewers were particularly vexed by requirements placed on tasting rooms that exempted similarly situated wineries. Lawyers called them “arbitrary, irrational and unconstitutional.”
– City News Service contributed to this report.
