California's pandemic-era law letting small distillers ship spirits directly to customers expires December 31, and a lobbying coalition that has poured millions into Sacramento has quietly ensured no permanent replacement will pass.
Republican Assemblymember Josh Hoover of Folsom tried to save the policy. He drafted an amendment to his own bill, AB 2211, that would have made direct-to-consumer shipping permanent for craft distillers, small producers making up to 150,000 gallons a year. The amendment was never published. Democratic committee chairs in both chambers refused to let him attach it, and the legislative session ends August 31. CalMatters reported that at least six groups, including major national alcohol distributors, lobbied on Hoover's bill, and those groups spent more than $1 million on lobbying this year alone.
The craft distillers, by contrast, reported spending $54,000. That is not a typo. The industry's trade group, the California Distillers Association, made just three donations to lawmakers in the past decade: a $42 bottle of whiskey, $215 in tequila, and a $1,300 campaign contribution.
The coalition fighting direct shipping includes the Wine & Spirits Wholesalers of America, the California Beer & Beverage Distributors, the California Family Beer Distributors, the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, and the Wine Institute. Together, those groups and their allies have donated at least $11 million to California politicians, Democrats and Republicans, since 2000. Since the start of the current two-year legislative session in 2025, they have given at least $738,000.
Follow the money to the lawmakers who control the process. Assembly Speaker Robert Rivas, a Democrat, received at least $108,000 from the groups opposing Hoover's unpublished amendment. He declined an interview request. State Sen. Susan Rubio, the Democrat who oversees the committee regulating California's alcohol industry, collected at least $65,000 from the same groups. Her sister, Assemblymember Blanca Rubio, who chairs the parallel committee in the Assembly, took at least $129,000. Neither allowed Hoover to attach his direct-shipping language when AB 2211 passed through their committees.
Senate President Pro Tem Monique Limón received at least $33,000 from the opposing coalition. Her response to interview questions was a single emailed sentence.
"This bill will continue to work its way through the legislative process as intended."
That is all she offered. The bill she referenced, AB 2211, which covers tasting-room and off-site sales, has advanced through the Legislature without a single lawmaker voting against it. But the direct-shipping provision Hoover wanted to add never made it onto the bill in the first place.
Cris Steller runs Amador and Dry Diggings Distillery out of El Dorado Hills, east of Sacramento. He also serves as acting executive director of the California Distillers Association. He said the opposing groups did not negotiate in good faith.
"They went directly to legislators' offices and basically torpedoed any effort we came up with."
Steller has already started pulling back on shipping bottles to customers. He said the uncertainty has made the investment pointless.
"I don't want to keep putting money into a program that's going to get yanked."
Former Democratic state senator Bill Dodd of Napa, who now lobbies on behalf of the craft distillery industry, put it more bluntly. He said corporate liquor wholesalers and distribution companies lobbied "to obliterate competition."
The wholesaler groups issued a joint statement framing the expiration as business as usual. The Wine & Spirits Wholesalers of America, the California Beer & Beverage Distributors, and the California Family Beer Distributors said the pandemic-era policy "was always meant to be temporary pandemic relief, and it's expiring exactly as designed, six years later." They added a flat declaration of opposition.
"We oppose any effort to make DTC (direct to consumer) permanent."
The wholesaler groups pointed to DoorDash, which is listed as a member of the Wine & Spirits Wholesalers of America on its website, as an existing delivery option for spirits after the law expires. That argument reveals the real stakes: the groups fighting direct shipping are not trying to stop consumers from getting liquor delivered. They are trying to make sure the delivery runs through their own members and partners.
Teamsters lobbyist Matt Broad offered a more carefully worded position. He said the union supports craft distiller shipping in principle but wants established shipping companies, the kind that employ Teamsters members, like UPS, to handle the deliveries.
"We are absolutely not opposed to the little guys being able to ship directly to consumers, and in fact, we have a track record of supporting the proposal but with meaningful guardrails that protect our members and protect the public."
Broad acknowledged that federal law prevents California from mandating the use of unionized truck drivers. So the "guardrails" the Teamsters want would have to work around that constraint, a detail that raises the question of what, exactly, those guardrails would look like. The reporting does not include specifics.
One of the sharpest contradictions in this fight is the unequal treatment across the alcohol industry. Wineries of any size can already ship directly to their customers in California. Breweries cannot. And craft distillers will lose the ability to do so on December 31 unless the Legislature acts, which, by all indications, it will not.
Steve Gross, president and CEO of the Wine Institute, a lobbying group representing more than 700 wine sellers, including Gallo Winery out of Modesto, said his organization is not necessarily opposed to craft distiller shipping. But he raised a fairness objection: the current proposal would let small distillers ship while leaving large distillers out.
"They have the option to go in and try and fight for a bill that we and others could also support. They've chosen not to because those larger distillers are not their members."
That argument sounds reasonable on its surface. But it effectively tells a small industry with $54,000 in lobbying money to go pick a bigger fight, one that would pit them against the same well-funded coalition already blocking the modest proposal on the table.
Sen. Susan Rubio's spokesperson, Giovanni Ruiz Reyes, initially told reporters that "conversations between stakeholders are ongoing" and that the senator "looks forward" to reviewing potential legislation. A second statement, issued on a Thursday, took a harder line.
"There is currently no bill or amendment before the committee seeking another extension. Accordingly, it would be inaccurate to suggest that Senator Rubio or the committee has blocked or refused to hear an extension when no such proposal is currently before the committee."
That statement is technically accurate and practically meaningless. The reason no amendment is "before the committee" is that the committee chairs, including Sen. Rubio herself, did not allow Hoover to attach it. Hoover's amendment was never published because it was never given a path forward. Saying you cannot block what does not exist, when you are the reason it does not exist, is a circular defense.
Rubio's spokesperson noted the senator supported four previous extensions of the craft distiller shipping policy. But supporting temporary extensions while blocking a permanent fix is not the same as supporting the policy. It is managing the clock.
Hoover himself sounded resigned. He told reporters he remains open to finding a solution but does not expect one this session.
"I'm always open to figuring this out, if there's a way that we can make this work.... but I don't have a lot of hope that this bill is going to preserve those provisions this year."
The pandemic-era policy that Governor Gavin Newsom launched by executive order during lockdowns, allowing small distillers to ship their products to customers' homes, has been in place for six years. In that time, the U.S. Postal Service continued its longstanding prohibition on most alcohol shipments, meaning craft distillers relied on private carriers. The system worked. No one has presented evidence that it failed.
And yet a coalition with $11 million in political donations, more than $1 million in annual lobbying, and access to every relevant committee chair in Sacramento managed to kill a provision that no lawmaker voted against, without ever having to cast a vote of their own.
That is how Sacramento works when the money lines up and the doors close. The small producers lose, the big distributors win, and the people who wrote the checks never have to explain themselves on the record.
