Senator,

I hope this letter finds you well. I recently moved to Illinois from
Alabama. I was born in Birmingham and spent the better part of my
youth bouncing around the state from Selma to Jasper and then back to
Birmingham where I graduated from Vestavia Hills High School. I’m
proud of my Alabama heritage and want to see the state do well.

I now live in Evanston, Illinois, home of Northwestern University.
Here gourmet beer is sold in grocery stores and two liquor stores in a
town of approximately 75,000 people. As an interested citizen, I
subscribe to the City of Evanston Police Department daily crime
report. In six months of living here I don’t recall having seen a
single DUI or hearing of a single fatal accident involving alcohol and
a person under the age of 21. There are a handful of DUIs in the crime
reports each week, but not nearly the amount you would think given
this is a college town with population similar to that of Hoover.
Availability of alcohol hasn’t contributed to higher death rate in
alcohol-related crashes.

The gourmet beers that are sold here are often sold in 4 or 6 packs.

It’s easy to spot the Northwestern students here in the grocery stores
as they will be the ones piling the cheapest, most plentiful beer into
shopping carts. That beer will be the 30 packs of Busch Light or Bud
Light (both of which are legal in Alabama). That can be said for
pretty much any college town in America.

I routinely buy beer that is brewed by the New Belgium Brewery in
Colorado or the local brewery, Goose Island. (Neither available in
Alabama) In 6-pack form, these beers routinely cost in excess of $12,
fully twice the cost of the cheaper, lower alcohol content beers. From
a purely physical standpoint, consuming large quantities of this beer
would make you ill before they had any sort of intoxicating effect
similar to that of binge drinking with Bud Light.

A side note here: Goose Island is a source of pride for Chicago-area
residents as it brews some of the finest beer I have ever tasted. It
creates jobs and tax revenues from a homegrown product. Unfortunately
that can’t be the case in Alabama because of the bill you are trying
to block with your filibuster.

If you are basing your opposition on the idea that higher alcohol beer
= more drunk people, then I believe you are misinformed. That would be
likening the argument that allowing Cuban cigars would mean more lung
cancer or cheaper Ferraris would mean more high speed crashes.
Reckless people will be reckless regardless the availability of tools
with which to harm themselves.

The bottom line is that those who are going to abuse alcohol will do
so in the quickest and easiest fashion available to them. Usually this
is done from cheap beer or liquor, not a $17 quart of beer.

The people you would punishing by not allowing this bill to pass are
the educated and upper income. Those who, as you can see at
FreetheHops.org, know how to organize a grass roots movement and
educate the public on facts regarding the government in Alabama.
You’re also punishing the entrepreneurs and those that have a gift in
beermaking. Their efforts and tax revenues are going out of state
where they can hone their craft and spend their money.

I hope that you’ll reconsider your decision and end your filibuster of
SB132. My home state and your home state will benefit because of it.

Thank you,

Grant Gannon