State Sued for "Stifling the Texas Craft Beer Renaissance"
Three Texas breweries filed a lawsuit against the state on Wednesday seeking to to overturn a 2013 law they say violates the Texas Constitution by forcing them to give away their territorial distribution rights for free.
In their complaint, filed in state district court in Austin, the heads of Live Oak Brewing in Austin, Peticolas Brewing Company in Dallas and Revolver Brewing in Granbury say that were it not for Senate Bill 639, they would be expanding. Instead, their plans to bring their beer to new markets around the state have been put on hold.
In the suit, they accuse the law of "stifling the Texas craft beer renaissance."
"This law is like the government forcing authors to give the rights to their books to publishers for free," said Matt Miller, managing attorney of the Texas office of the Institute for Justice, a Virginia-based law firm representing the brewers. "It is unconstitutional for Texas to force brewers to give distributors property that they never earned and don't deserve."
Read more: http://www.texastribune.org/2014/12/10/state-sued-stifling-texas-craft-beer-renaissance/ 