City Beverage & WEDCO, One Step Closer To Finality

In Beer News by Ryan

The Illinois Liquor Control Commission, Wednesday, moved one step closer to deciding the fate of a wholly owned subsidiary of Anheuser-Busch InBev and its right to hold a minority stake in an Illinois distributor.

Commissioners remained behind closed doors, in executive session, for much of their hours-long meeting. When they emerged they read aloud a series of 11 findings, all agreed upon by commissioners, regarding a resolution to the Wholesaler Equity Development Corporation/City Beverage debate.

The findings are considered, by one source, an outline of sorts toward reaching a final conclusion. There were no hard copies of the findings provided at the meeting, leaving those in attendance to furiously scribble notes, which is why we aren’t outlining the findings one-by-one.

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The issue at hand; in light of a new state law enacted last year defining who can and cannot self-distribute beer in the state, can WEDCO retain its 30-percent stake in distributor City Beverage?

AB InBev says yes. Distributor groups in the state say no.

A source at the meeting tells us it appears, from the findings read aloud, that commissioners may be leaning towards following the current state law which would prohibit a manufacturer from owning a distributor, thus keeping AB InBev out of the self-distribution game in Illinois.

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The newest commissioner, Cynthia Cahill, who was appointed five days ago abstained from voting on the findings.

We’re currently working on obtaining a hard copy of the findings. As soon as we get one, we’ll post it – verbatim – here at GuysDrinkingBeer.com.

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Ryan

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Equal parts beer nerd and policy geek, Ryan is now the curator of the Guys Drinking Beer cellar. The skills he once used to dig through the annals of state government as a political reporter are now put to use offering unique takes on barrel-aged stouts, years-old barleywines and 10 + year verticals.

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