By Jessica Holdman
SCDailyGazette.com
COLUMBIA – The chairman of a powerful House committee stepped to the podium this week carrying a cardboard box to tell his colleagues about a special delivery to his office.
Tearing into the package, GOP Rep. Weston Newton pulled out a bottle of Maker’s Mark bourbon and held it up as proof.
To get it shipped from an online retailer, said the Bluffton lawyer, all he had to do was type in his credit card number. The delivery driver never asked him or anyone else at his law office for proof of age before leaving the bottles.
The show-and-tell theatrics came as Newton urged legislators to pass his bill setting legal parameters for home delivery of beer, wine and liquor — as well as curbside deliveries for outside-the-store pick-up orders.
“This is happening today. We can pretend it’s not happening,” the House Judiciary chairman told his GOP opponents Wednesday about alcohol deliveries. What’s done already is “circumventing regulation. It’s circumventing taxation. It’s circumventing the protections of making sure that folks that are getting access to alcohol are 21 (years old.)”
That, Newton said, is why legislation is needed.
But no, he told another GOP lawmaker, he was not going to share his bourbon that day, earning him a round of chuckles.
Under the proposal, the state would license retailers to fill curbside pickup orders of beer, wine and liquor, as well as offer home delivery. Customers and delivery drivers would have to be at least 21. Stores could deliver only within the same or contiguous ZIP codes, a provision meant to protect small, locally owned businesses.
It was another alcohol debate that was largely Republican versus Republican.
The House passed similar legislation in 2021. And while this latest alcohol delivery bill again passed in the House by a vote of 77-29 — with two Democrats among the “no” votes — the Senate is where it faces its greatest hurdle.
The legislation now joins a bill that has been stalled in the Senate since last March, due to a vice-averse Republican’s objection.
Opponents quote harrowing statistics:
- South Carolina’s binge drinking rate is 16.2%, according to the latest data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. In the Southeast, only North Carolina and Louisiana saw higher rates – 16.8% and 18.3% respectively.
- An estimated 85 South Carolinians under the age of 21 die each year due to alcohol use, according to the state Department of Alcohol and Other Drug Abuse Services.
- 33% of traffic fatalities in 2021 in South Carolina involved drivers with blood alcohol content above the legal limit of .08%, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.
“We have an alcohol problem in South Carolina,” said Rep. John McCravy, R-Greenwood. “This causes injuries, (domestic) violence, all kinds of things.”
Passing this legislation, he and other opponents contend, will only make alcohol more accessible — and much quicker than by snail mail.
Supporters point to a one-year window in South Carolina when people could pick up beer and wine curbside for orders placed to restaurants, bars and stores as proof that dire consequences aren’t likely to follow.
An executive order signed by Gov. Henry McMaster in 2020 amid his mandated temporary closures to in-person dining suspended state law barring alcohol sales to anyone in a vehicle. That option went away once he lifted his pandemic emergency declaration.
“It worked without incident,” said Sen. Scott Talley, R-Spartanburg, who is the lead sponsor of the Senate bill.
Meanwhile, Talley said there’s a growing demand for the change as consumers become accustomed to delivery and pickup services, especially after relying on them during the COVID pandemic.
Jessica Holdman writes about the economy, workforce and higher education. Before joining the S.C. Daily Gazette, she was a business reporter for The Post and Courier.
