Alcohol-vote bill fails; wine tax goes to governor

State Rep. Kelley Linck, R-Flippin, speaks in support of legislation requiring the collection of local taxes on certain wine shipments. The measure passed.
State Rep. Kelley Linck, R-Flippin, speaks in support of legislation requiring the collection of local taxes on certain wine shipments. The measure passed.

A bill to allow voters in northern Pulaski County to vote on whether to allow hotels and restaurants to serve alcoholic beverages failed to clear the state Senate on Tuesday as the House sent to the governor legislation to require wineries to collect local sales taxes on shipments of wine.

Legislative committees also endorsed legislation to authorize spending by the University of Arkansas Division of Agriculture to monitor swine farm operations along the Buffalo River and to notify people enrolled in the private-option program that it will end on Dec. 31, 2016.

Legislation to allow voters in Gray Township in northern Pulaski County to vote on whether to allow hotels and restaurants to serve alcoholic beverages fell one vote short of the 24 votes required for approval.

The Senate's vote on SB373 by Sen. Jane English, R-North Little Rock, was 23-8. A two-thirds vote of the Senate is required for approval of the bill because it would change an initiated act. The Senate later expunged the vote to clear the way for another vote on the bill.

SB373 would require petitioners to gather names from 15 percent of the registered voters residing within the boundaries of a defunct voting district to hold a local option election on whether to permit the sale of alcoholic beverages for on-premises consumption in the defunct voting district.

Existing law requires petitioners to gather signatures from 38 percent of the registered voters to hold a local option election on whether to allow the sales of alcohol for both on-premises and off-premises consumption.

Jacksonville and its surrounding unincorporated area, along with parts of Sherwood, have remained dry while the rest of Pulaski County has been wet. Gray Township, which encompasses much of northeast Pulaski County, voted in the 1950s to ban alcohol sales.

LOCAL SALES TAX ON WINE SHIPMENTS

The state House of Representatives voted 83-3 to approve SB230 by Sen. Larry Teague, D-Nashville, to require wineries to collect city and county sales taxes on wine shipped directly to Arkansans from out-of-state wineries. The bill goes to the governor.

Act 483 of 2013 authorized wineries to ship wine directly to Arkansans. Arkansans must purchase the wine while physically present at the winery, and the winery must register with the Arkansas Beverage Control Division.

Arkansas cities and counties would receive "minimal additional revenue" under the bill, according to the state Department of Finance and Administration.

The legislation would make Arkansas' law comply with the Streamlined Sales and Use Tax Agreement and not pose a risk to about $10 million per year that the state collects through the agreement, the finance department said. The agreement encourages "remote sellers" selling over the Internet and by mail order to collect taxes on sales to customers living in the states that are in the agreement. But Congress hasn't enacted legislation to require sellers to participate.

HOT SPRINGS VILLAGE ALCOHOL

The Senate State Agencies and Governmental Affairs Committee endorsed SB215 by Sen. Bill Sample, R-Hot Springs, to allow a property owner's association with a population of 5,000 or more to authorize the sale of alcoholic beverages for on-premises consumption if the property owners association is located in a county that authorized the manufacture and sale of intoxicating liquor after Nov. 1, 2012.

Sample, who proposed the bill to help Hot Springs Village, said his bill would only apply to Saline, Sharp, Benton and Columbia counties.

BUFFALO RIVER MONITORING

The Legislature's Joint Budget Committee endorsed Senate Bill 270 that includes a $100,000 appropriation in fiscal 2016 to the University of Arkansas from the UA Fund for environmental studies linked to the monitoring of swine farming operations within the Buffalo River watershed.

UA Division of Agriculture will report the results and progress of these studies to the House and Senate Public Health, Welfare and Labor committees by June 30 and Dec. 31 of each year under the bill.

"It is intended by the 90th General Assembly that these studies be conducted for four fiscal years, concluding with the (2019) fiscal year," SB270 states.

The Division of Agriculture is currently in the second year of "what we anticipate will be a five-year study," said division spokesman Mark Scott. The bill goes to the Senate.

DISABILITY BENEFITS

The House sent to the governor SB48, by Sample, which would require members of the teacher retirement system who receive disability retirement benefits and are under 57 to provide a disability determination letter from the Social Security Administration by July 1, 2018, or lose their benefits.

The bill is designed to prevent members from working full-time while drawing down disability benefits.

PRIVATE OPTION NOTIFICATION

The House Public Health, Welfare and Labor Committee recommended approval of a bill to notify enrollees in the state's private-option Medicaid expansion program of the program's "termination date."

The program allows poor Arkansans to have private insurance plans purchased with federal Medicaid dollars.

House Bill 1363, by Rep. Donnie Copeland, R-North Little Rock, would require the Department of Human Services to notify people who enroll in the private-option program next year that the program ends on Dec. 31, 2016 and that the coverage will expire that day. Department Director John Selig said the notification could be confusing for those enrollees, but the measure passed through the committee on a voice vote.

The Legislature has approved legislation to enact a plan from Gov. Asa Hutchinson to create a task force responsible for recommending ways to change the state's overall Medicaid program, including the private option, by the end of this year with the aim of ending the private option by Dec. 31, 2016.

FETAL TISSUE DISPOSAL

The House Public Health, Welfare and Labor Committee Committee also endorsed HB1407, by Rep. Kim Hammer, R-Benton, which would require that disposal of fetal tissue be done in a respectful manner, such as by burial or cremation, or be turned over to parents.

Hammer said he crafted the bill after he realized that under current state law the remains of a fetus are not required to be disposed of like other human tissue is. He said that sometimes fetuses are disposed of "like medical waste... [being sent] out to be disposed of in landfills."

"All the hospitals, they use the method that this bill is patterned after... Any facility that deals with birth, including abortion clinics, are all held to the same standard," Hammer said. "[The bill gives] a clear mandate, by law, that says you will treat this baby with respect."

Information for this article was contributed by Spencer Willems of the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.

Metro on 02/25/2015

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