A new bill would make it legal for small-scale breweries to sell alcohol on site. Vísir reports that the bill, presented by Minister of Justice Jón Gunnarsson, would allow breweries to sell bottled or can beer to visitors without having to resort to complicated and expensive workarounds, like applying for a liquor license and opening an on-site bar.
A similar bill was presented by former Minister of Justice Áslaug Arna Sigurbjörnsdóttir, but was met with protest from the state liquor authority (ÁTVR), which argued that the proposed changes would undermine state-run liquor stores.
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ÁTVR recently faced a setback in a similar attempt to quash alcohol retail on the open market. Just last week, the Reykjavík District Court ruled against the authority in its case against Sante ehf., Santewine SAS, and Bjórland, retail outlets that have begun selling alcohol outside of the state monopoly. In its case, ÁTVR demanded that these companies cease operations because ÁTVR holds the exclusive right to sell alcohol in Iceland.
ÁTVR has decided to appeal the recent ruling, but Minister of Finance Bjarni Benediktsson, whose ministry oversees ÁTVR, would like to see the current bill go even further, saying he’d like to see traditional online alcohol retail permitted in Iceland.
