For six years, Californians have been able to shake up a craft cocktail at home using alcohol delivered to their doorstep. Now, it's last call for the distillery deliveries, unless lawmakers intervene by the end of this month. This was reported by Qazaqyia.kz citing Associated Press.

This was reported by Qazaqyia.kz citing Associated Press.

That's unlikely, thanks to opposition from California's wine industry, Teamsters union truck drivers and corporate alcohol wholesalers and distributors.

The influential, well-funded groups lobbied the Legislature behind closed doors this year to block legislation that would have made permanent pandemic-era rules that allowed craft distillers to ship spirits directly to their customers. During the pandemic lockdowns, Gov. Gavin Newsom issued an executive order that allowed craft distillers to ship spirits to their customers' homes. In the years since, lawmakers passed temporary laws allowing craft distillers — defined as those that produce up to 150,000 gallons a year — to keep shipping their spirits. The latest extension expires Dec. 31.

"I don't have a lot of hope that we're going to be able to salvage this," said Folsom Republican Assemblymember Josh Hoover. He tried unsuccessfully this year to amend one of his bills to let small distillers continue shipping directly to their customers.

The groups blocking Hoover's proposal have spent more than $1 million lobbying the Legislature and state government this year. They have donated at least 11 times that much to California politicians and their campaigns over the years. The craft distillers, who have spent a fraction as much on state politics, say all that spending from the opposition, particularly from corporate liquor distributors, appears to have paid off.

"They went directly to legislators' offices and basically torpedoed any effort we came up with," said Cris Steller, acting executive director of the California Distillers Association and the owner of Amador and Dry Diggings Distillery in El Dorado Hills, a family-run business that makes whiskey, brandy, vodka and gin.

The fight is about more than whether Californians can have a bottle of whiskey or gin delivered. It illustrates how decisions are made in Sacramento, where wealthy and powerful interests can shape or kill policy in secret negotiations with lawmakers. Politicians, in turn, benefit when proposals die quietly because they don't have to explain their decisions to voters.

Opponents insist they aren't using the political system to crush competitors as national alcohol sales slump.

Instead, representatives of the major alcohol wholesalers and distributors that stock shelves at liquor retailers say they oppose the proposal because it primarily benefits out-of-state companies and weakens safeguards that include preventing alcohol deliveries to minors.

Teamsters lobbyist Matt Broad said the labor group's truck drivers aren't opposed to allowing craft distillers to ship their product. They just want them to use established shipping companies that have actual employees, including those that employ Teamsters, such as UPS.

Those companies have standards to ensure legal delivery, Broad said. When they employ drivers rather than use contractors, the companies — not the drivers — bear legal liability.

Federal law preempts California from mandating hiring unionized truck drivers, Broad said.

"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," he told CalMatters. The California wine industry, which has been allowed to ship bottles directly to customers in California for decades, isn't necessarily opposed either. But its representative says wine sellers are leery of giving little alcohol sellers delivery rights when big liquor companies deserve the same. Wineries of any size can ship to their customers in Califo