Not surprisingly, California “cool” and the federal government are at odds. In this corner is Mount Shasta Brewing Company (MSBC), a brewer based in Weed, CA. In the opposite corner is the Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau. At odds: MSBC’s “try legal weed” marketing text on its bottle caps.
According to an April 22, 2008 report on Redding.com, part of the Scripps Newspaper Group-Online, “Bureau spokesperson Art Resnick said the caps tell consumers to support an illegal drug—a policy that violates rules of the Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau as well as the agency’s predecessor, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms.”
MSBC’s brewer Josh Riggs says the following on the company’s www.mtshastabrewing.com Web site: “Our product is legal and it is brewed, filled, and capped in Weed, not with weeds.”
The company’s owners, Vaune and Barbara Dillmann, note on the site, “When the [try legal weed] application was submitted to ATF, they refused to approve our label, due to the wording on the bottle cap, as they felt it made an illegal reference to drug use. MSBC asked ATF to reconsider their opinion since corporate attorneys who reviewed our slogan had approved its production.”
The Dillmann’s say, “MSBC is trying to encourage people to buy legal, not illegal product. ATF refused to change their decision. The bottle cap is not allowed on our Lemurian Lager bottles. The label was resubmitted with a blank bottle cap and received ATF approval. MSBC sent letters to Congressional representatives who requested ATF reconsider their decision. ATF said they would and will publish their opinion within 45 days.”
It’s unclear if ATF has reversed its position at this time, but here’s one interesting comment from the Redding.com report: “The owner of the Mount Shasta Brewing Co. said he’s also outraged that his beer is being singled out for using a possible pot play on words when Anheuser-Busch has used ‘Bud’—another name for marijuana—to promote their Budweiser line of beers.”
“What’s the difference here?” Redding.com quotes Dillmann as saying. “They sell Bud—we sell Weed.”
