Gov. Martin O?Malley on Thursday delayed signing a bill classifying sweetened alcohol drinks ? so-called alcopops ? as beer because of pressure from groups opposed to teenage drinking.
“Now I?m going to think about what they said,” he told reporters after he signed more than 200 bills, but not SB745, which would have formally designated malted beverages, such as Mike?s Hard Lemonade and Smirnoff Ice, as beer.
The comptroller?s office has been taxing the 6 percent-alcohol beverages at the lower tax rate of beer and allowed them to be sold where beer is sold, including convenience stores.
Attorney General Doug Gansler issued his own opinion, saying the drinks are distilled spirits, should be taxed at a rate 10 times higher and sold only in liquor stores.
He said the alcohol industry is “targeting entry-level drinkers” with the sweetened beverages, resulting in “more people being killed, more bereaved parents.”
O?Malley said “two different issues” surround the measure.
One is revenue and the other is whether these alcopops are “sort of a gateway type of thing,” and the state should “put them away from the reach of underage drinkers,” he said.
Ruth Maiorana, executive director of Maryland Association of County Health Officials, attended the meeting with O?Malley and 10 other people, expressing her group?s opposition.
“We view it as bad public policy,” she said.
She said the meeting had been organized Wednesday by the Advocates for Highway and Auto Safety in Washington.
Charles Hurley, chief executive officer of Mothers Against Drunk Driving, flew in from Texas to meet with O?Malley, and a representative of the American Public Health Association, Maryland pediatricians and emergency room nurses also attended, as did several parents of teens killed in drunken driving incidents.
