Local breweries and wineries affected by government shutdown

47 ABC – It’s now day 26 of the partial government shutdown and now local businesses on the shore are starting to feel the effects.

Local businesses like Salted Vines Vineyard and Winery work hard year round to bring new products to their customers, but all of that could be delayed because of one little label.

“Alcohol is not allowed to leave any facility without a government approved label on it,” explains Adrian Mobilia, owner of Salted Vines Winery.

It’s a label that local wineries and breweries rely on when they release a wine or beer on the market, but right now they can’t get any new labels approved because the Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau or TTB isn’t operating due to the partial government shutdown.

“It takes usually 10 to 15 days to get approval once we submit an application to when they tell us you need to make a change or it’s approved. Now it’s about 43 days but they are not processing anything,” explains Jason Hearn, co-owner of Tall Tales Brewing Co.

And with no applications going through, the real concern is that all the labels are piling up untouched. Backlogged labels that are a big cause for concern for local breweries who are gearing up for their spring releases.

“We have applications that are submitted right now were but they’re all on hold. You cannot sell over a state line without having that TTB beer label approval so it severely hampers your beer sales if you don’t have that label approval,” explains Hearn.

Which is why Salted Vines is trying to get their summer labels down and submitted as soon as possible because right now Mobilia says, “It’s hard to plan. It’s kind of like the weather, right, we don’t know what’s going to happen tomorrow.”

So it’s really just a waiting game for these local businesses to see how big of an impact the partial government shutdown will have on them.

We’re told it will take about 43 days for label approval, but Tall Tales Brewing Company tells us the longer this shutdown continues the more likely it is that it will take even longer.

Without approved labels, breweries and other places that serve alcohol are still able to sell it at their business but they won’t be able to sell it out of state.