Draft of new alcohol act placed in parliament

The government on Thursday tabled at parliament a proposal for carrying out comprehensive reforms to the current Alcohol Act.

Parliament will discuss the proposal during its autumn session. The proposed act’s entry into force depends on parliamentary discussions, said a government press release.

According to the release, the reforms would integrate the Alcohol Act 1994 and the 13 decrees issued under it into a single law as comprehensively as possible. The professed aim of the legislation is to find a balance between reducing the public health harms caused by alcohol intake and the needs of Finnish businesses and industries.

The main principle of the proposed act is preventing the negative effects of alcohol, said the government. However, according to the draft law, Alko’s retail monopoly and the licensing system for retailing and serving alcoholic beverages would continue.

The release said, especially, several ‘obsolete and rigid’ regulations would be removed from the current Alcohol Act to ease the burden on the restaurant sector as a part of the government’s deregulation efforts.

As per some decisions reached in the budget discussions, the government will also take measures for raising the taxes on alcohol to generate EUR 100 million in revenues to be used for cutting down the harms of alcohol consumption.

If the law is passed, groceries, kiosks, and petrol stations would be allowed to sell stronger alcoholic beverages – stronger beers and ciders and long drink beverages containing no more than 5.5% ethyl alcohol. The opening hours of restaurants and bars would be deregulated in the same way as was done with store opening hours at the beginning of 2016. However, the regular serving hours would still end at 1.30am, but restaurants and bars could continue to serve alcohol until 4.00am by notifying the authorities about the time extension.

In the draft act, it is proposed that the current system of issuing A, B and C serving licences to restaurants and bars be abandoned. Instead, there would be only one serving licence covering all types of alcoholic beverages.

Moreover, the qualification requirements for responsible managers in restaurants and bars would be made less stringent.

The new alcohol act would also introduce the concept of craft beer which the producers could sell directly at the place of production. Craft beers or microbrewery products would refer to alcoholic beverages produced primarily from malt by fermentation and containing no more than 12% ethyl alcohol.

Licensed premises, just like retail stores, would be able to sell alcoholic beverages for consumption off the premises, in accordance with the normal retail sales rules. Retail stores, on the other hand, would no longer be allowed to give customers rewards or pay bonuses for purchasing alcoholic beverages. The ban would also apply to alcoholic beverages purchased abroad or on board ferries. All purchases of alcoholic beverages would be excluded from the bonus systems of Finnish retail stores. A similar ban is already in place for the retrial sales of tobacco products.

The draft proposes no amendment to the current ban on cross-border distance sales of alcoholic beverages. The provision will be reconsidered once the Supreme Court issues its ruling on the EU Court of Justice Case C-198/2014 Visnapuu concerning the Finnish ban on distance sales of alcohol.