BATON ROUGE, La. -- The Louisiana House refused to approve a series of alcohol law changes, even after stripping a controversial passage that would have allowed thousands of supermarkets and convenience stores to sell frozen daiquiris to customers under the same liquor license they use to sell sealed containers of liquor, beer and wine, said the Associated Press.
As reported in CSP Daily News, State Representative Troy Hebert (D) had said sales of frozen alcoholic drinks are allowed under current law and daiquiris-to-go have been widely sold at such [image-nocss] stores in rural areas. But the commissioner of the Office of Alcohol & Tobacco Control said during committee testimony that current law bans such sales.
So, Hebert said he was trying to clean up the dispute by clarifying the law to spell out that supermarkets, c-stores and liquor stores already are allowed to sell frozen alcoholic drinks.
Opponents said the bill would throw open the doors to allow nearly every corner grocery store, gas station, c-store and local package liquor store to sell daiquiris-to-go and make it harder to enforce laws that forbid the sales of other types of nonfrozen mixed drinks at those stores.
The House voted 51 to 48 to strip that provision out of the bill, but Hebert still could not persuade the chamber to pass the bill. It failed in a 38-to-62 vote.
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